I AM not attempting to attach blame to either set of supporters. I am not attempting to absolve them either. I am focusing on those who are above suspicion; those who never have to take responsibility because of their control, which means they do not need to pursue pardon.
It might seem the moment has passed to write about what happened last week in Basel. Not what happened on the pitch, what happened off it, just yards away from Sevilla’s players who were warming-up around 40 minutes before the kick off.
We will return to the issue soon, though, because UEFA have charged Liverpool as well as their opponents for “crowd disturbances” and European football’s control and disciplinary body will deal with the case on July 21.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HCSOxpxqF4
Yesterday, Liverpool and Manchester United were fined for the problems that occurred over two legs of their Europa League tie in March. Neither club or fanbase has attempted to defend itself because it was visible — and audible — what happened and why it happened.
Liverpool will be punished again. Sevilla will be punished, too. But who will punish UEFA? Who will punish the authorities? UEFA have already washed their hands of it, insisting it was the responsibility of the host club to deal with policing numbers and organisation on the day.
And yet, it is impossible to justify why UEFA gave the second most important final in European football to Basel when there are 111 stadiums across the rest of the continent that are bigger. Two years ago, when the decision was made, the Football Supporters’ Federation warned there would be chaos if one of the biggest clubs ended up being involved.
Can we consider too the most obvious contribution, that UEFA then decided to award the winners of the Europa League with a place in the Champions League?
Did UEFA not stop to think about the implications if illustrious clubs carrying more supporters took the tournament seriously after moving the goalposts in an attempt to sex up their product?
UEFA had two years to prepare for this final and eighteen months to change their minds after heightening the incentive to go all the way and win it. Instead, they carried on with their hosting plans on home territory (UEFA is based in Nyon just up the road from Basel), affording Liverpool and Sevilla supporters less than 10,500 tickets each, while giving 15,000 to the ballot box and the UEFA “family.”
If you want to get directly to the root of all the problems, look here. I wrote about this at the weekend on my Facebook page so I apologise if you are reading this for a second time.
I arrived the day before the final and organisation for press accreditation was disorganised. I was not alone in waiting two hours. Computers crashed. The conference theatre was too small. There were a limited number of plugs for computers. The vetting process was desperately slow and, as a result, some journalists arrived after the managers had started speaking. This left me concerned. If St Jakob-Park couldn’t deal with making it accessible to less than 150 journalists on a quiet afternoon how were they going to deal with a stadium full to capacity?
It prompted me to arrive at the stadium at around 5pm the following day — nearly four hours before kick off (I usually get there 90 minutes in advance). There were three checkpoints for tickets but nobody looked inside my bag or even scanned my pass. It indicated to me that the authorities had become so obsessed by the potential number of fans travelling, they’d forgotten about a basic duty of care — especially in this mad world we live in. I could have been carrying anything.
Having bumbled around in the press room for a while (outside the actual ground itself), I made my way to my seat at 7pm local time. Supporters were arriving early too — as advised (and perhaps because Basel’s transport system had stopped) — and an hour later the scene was pretty clear behind one end. Liverpool and Sevilla fans were separated by nothing but concrete steps. There was no segregation whatsoever. No organisation whatsoever. No care whatsoever.
I was astonished. Then I was angry. Then I was worried.
I’ve been at a lot of games at home and abroad and there has always been segregation. So why not in this particular game — this final?
To this question, UEFA will probably reason it was supposed to be a neutral area.
Would they accept, however, the glaringly obvious point that when you release more tickets to the ballot box and your own “family” and suddenly those tickets start appearing online for thousands of pounds because demand outstrips supply in the first place, that this is the outcome? Equally, do Uefa not believe supposed neutral supporters deserve their own space in the ground? Aren’t the neutral supporters simply in the Sevilla end, an area which is not actually neutral?
The fight that ensued lasted a minute or two and it involved between 10 and 20 people.
A poor steward who was probably working to pay his college fees was left to deal with it all. I’d watched 27 police vans arrive at the ground when I passed through the last checkpoint earlier on but the authorities were nowhere to be seen at this potentially crucial moment.
Considerable gaps appeared on the terracing, reflecting that more than 99 per cent of supporters wanted nothing to do with it. Booing started. The fighting had stopped by the time the police showed up. In turn they formed a single layer cordon facing towards the Sevilla supporters. It took more than an hour for that cordon to become three deep — the minimum it needed to be in light of nothing else being there.
I’m glad it didn’t get any more serious than that. The rest of the night was spent on edge.
Yet who in power really cares about details, so long as the canapés and the fizz arrive at half time for the dignitaries to quaff?
The simple answer is ‘no one’.
It’s incredible that something as big as football has such antiquated, out of touch and unaccountable governing bodies at global, continental, national and local levels. I’d scrap the lot if I could and start again.
Brilliant article that sadly will no doubt go unread by anyone at UEFA and even if it did, they don’t give a fuck about fans.
I smell a bung!
Wait do bungs smell? Something smells!
Definitely mate. The sniffer dog got me at Mancs Airport last week. My head went for a minute trying to think what was in my pockets. The dog handler said ‘do you have money in your pockets?’ I had 3 different currencies and that’s what it’d been alerted to.
Spot on Si. When we passed through the first checkpoint at the top of the road, the lad who went through next to our kid managed to do so by showing a ticket for the Man United game. When we got to the ground itself we had to attempt to enter through one small barricade that would funnel two at a time through to the turnstiles and which was obviously surrounded by a large, unmanaged crowd. As we stood, patiently, aware of the fact that we could miss kick off despite having been there over an hour before we were supposed to be, there were two heavily armed police officers watching over us from a raised walk way and doing absolutely nothing to try to rectify a clearly potentially problematic situation.
UEFA’s duty of care to the fans at this final fell down on every possible level; their lack of interest in the needs of the travelling supporter is a constant disgrace. The idea that they could look at that stadium and decide that it remained fit for hosting a final is laughable, the idea that they could now look at how many of us there were in the stadium and not accept that their ticketing policies are not fit for purpose is absurd but sadly inevitable.
UEFA and FIFA prove themselves again and again to be thoroughly unconcerned with football and simply with whatever profits their positions of power can bring them.
Excellent article. It never ceases to amaze me that time and again the authorities always seem to shirk responsibility when there is a problem. It’s always someone else’s fault. What else annoys me is the lack of journalists who don’t or won’t dare write anything in condemnation of this cartel. Uefa are and always will be a joke. Disband these criminals and let our beautiful game be ran by people who adore the sport, not the wealth it can bring them. Basel proves money talks, and common sense walks (of a short period).
The worst thing about this is that it’s happened before. More than once. Athens was chaos and before that we had Hysel. Liverpool fans were jailed over Hysel, the club fined and thrown out of Europe (along with all English teams) but where was the punishment for UEFA?
They picked a stadium with no safety certificate. They went to inspect the ground in January of 1985 but in the end didn’t bother because it was raining (!) and instead stayed in the hospitality suite for an extra long lunch. Then the day of the game there was no order, just chaos. Rocks, stones and all kinds of debris were just lying on the ground on the terraces cos the ground was in such a state of disrepair, etc etc etc.
Liverpool were punished for Hysel but UEFA never admitted any culpability whatsoever. Hysel could (and probably would with any set of fans at the time) have happened without Liverpool fans but could not for one moment have happened without UEFA’s malpractice, shocking incompetence and indifference to fan safety.
So while UEFA washing their hands of any responsibility for the events in Basel is undeniably a disgrace, it’s certainly not a surprising one
I was caught up in the middle of this as perhaps naively I was taking in the atmosphere from behind the Sevilla goal. I got out quick smart. I certainly have my views on what started it. What was evident is that due to poor policing, stewarding, ticketing and general poor uefa-ing the amount of fans in the Sevilla end was far greater than the amount of seats. At the front of the stand they were standing 5 deep in the walk way police seemed more bothered by standing in front of the Liverpool fans.
Agree wholeheartedly but will the club stand up for itself or have its pants pulled down again and take whatever is dished out by Uefa.
Sadly it will b the latter.
The issue wasn’t only the stadium itself. Switzerland has had discussions about the responsiblity for the safety around football games for years.
I think the police is only responsible for the security around the stadium and the clubs hire private security for inside so the police is only let in after something happened.
That’s only based on my personal observations but it seemed the same way when Partisan Belgrade plaied my local team a few years back and they invaded the family sector and threw flares at the home supporters, no one got hurt so noone mentioned it.
I have the impression the people responsible just assume nothing is going to happen until it does, and UEFA with its headquarters in Switzerland are surely aware of those issues but apparently don’t care.
I stood in the opposite end, and we didn’t even notice the fighting. Actually, my mate and I were talking about how nice it was that there were now trouble despite the lack of segregation. We were both surprised when we started to receive texts from home asking if we were safe…
The policing and stewarding was definitely better than in Athens, but still poor. Who is willing to take on UEFA? It is like confronting the police for driving too fast…
I agree that there is no excuse for Uefa, however fighting Liverpool fans is still disgraceful, this year of all years given the Hillsborough verdicts finally absolved us of any wrongdoing.
There is NO EXCUSE for fighting at a football match. Have we learned nothing?
European H&S Law. Report UEFA for material breaches. There is numerous pieces of legislation they can be held accountable for failing to manage.
Great article Si, shame how scary the facts are in this day and age and after all that’s happened over the years..
Just read that Real Madrid and Athletico Received just over 19,500 for yesterday’s final which is around a quarter of the capacity of the San Siro.What is going on with UEFA and why isn’t anyone able to do anything about it?