On Uefa
“The panel has concluded that Uefa, as event owner, bears primary responsibility for failures which almost led to disaster.”
The panel found that it was reasonable of Uefa to delegate some security and safety operations to the French Football Federation (FFF), which regularly runs matches at the Stade de France (SDF), and defer to the local Préfecture de Police for policing duties.
“It did not follow that this absolved Uefa of responsibility. Uefa was central to the organisation of the event, and it should have monitored, supervised and assisted with security and safety measures, to ensure they were fit for purpose, and to identify and remedy problems before they arose in real time.”
“Uefa did remain involved throughout, and so it should. However, it did so ineffectually, without taking responsibility and without doing so through the appropriate staff: its own safety and security unit.”
The panel found that Uefa’s safety and security unit was “marginalised” by the Uefa events organisers and did not perform the required role of overseeing the safety requirements. Aleksander Ceferin, Uefa’s president, took the decision to delay kick-off, while standing in a stairwell in the stadium VIP area; it was not taken by the police commander in the control room, in liaison with Uefa and the FFF’s safety advisers, as it should have been.
“The panel has not been able to identify any effective action taken by the safety and security unit … adviser present in the stadium control room on match day, including during the crisis.”
On the police
The policing operation was “defective”, the report states. The police prepared for serious problems of hooliganism, ignoring well-founded information from Merseyside police and clubs that there had been “no significant issues of football-related violence” involving Liverpool or Real Madrid supporters in recent years. The thousands of Liverpool supporters who went to Paris without match tickets did so to enjoy the atmosphere, not seek entry to the stadium in large numbers.
“The police, unchallenged and accepted without question by other stakeholders, adopted a model aimed at a nonexistent threat from football hooligans, together with a preoccupation that ticketless supporters required a public order policing approach rather than one based upon facilities and engagement.”
Police failed to monitor access routes to the stadium and regulate the numbers going to the narrow bottleneck access point; “there was an absence of contingency plans” and no “effective plan to deal with anti-social behaviour or violence perpetrated by locals”.
“Ultimately the failures of this approach culminated in a policing operation that deployed tear gas and pepper spray: weaponry which has no place at a festival of football.”
The “dangerous conditions on the concourse” were exacerbated by the use of teargas and pepper spray. “It is remarkable that no one lost their life.”
The panel stated it had sympathy with the comments of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association, that “the heavy-handed approach of the police is a stain on France”.
The panel's 21 recommendations to improve safety and security at finals
1. Uefa should set up a process to ensure that the panel’s recommendations are implemented, including by other stakeholders. Uefa should publish an action plan on its website and regular updates on progress.
2. Uefa should always require that all stakeholders responsible for hosting a Champions League final follow the 2016 Council of Europe “Saint Denis Convention”. It agreed an approach towards supporters based on “safety, security and service” rather than one based on preparing for disorder.
3. Uefa should ensure that its safety and security unit has oversight and primary responsibility for the safety, security, and service component of Champions League final operations.
4. Uefa’s safety and security unit should develop its capacity to “ensure that mobility and access arrangements are as safe and secure as possible for supporters with any disabilities or special needs, and that service to them is optimised”.
5. A host stadium’s safety team should be directly and more fully involved in the planning for a match and making risk assessments.
6. Host stadiums must all have “well-managed security perimeters, welcome services and crowd guidance and orientation”.
7. Uefa should have a formal requirement in the host bidding process that police commit to compliance with the “engagement-focused” approach towards supporters agreed in the Saint Denis Convention.
8. Uefa’s safety and security unit should engage with host police commanders in advance, support access to relevant expertise and invite them to observe quarter- and semi-finals, gaining experience of clubs’ supporters. If problems are identified in the planning phase and cannot be resolved, these should be “escalated to government authorities”.
9. Uefa should move as rapidly as possible to solely digital ticketing, and ensure host venues are fully capable of supporting this. Having both digital and paper ticketing at the Paris final was a factor in causing the long delays and access problems.
10. Uefa should “optimise” its communications and messaging toward supporters regarding the match facilities, mobility, routing and access arrangements. “Above all else it should embed the involvement of supporter organisations and finalist club stewards in its communication strategy, to effectively spread information and urgent messages.”
11. Finalist clubs should have their supporter liaison officers acting as the key contact for supporters. This is already an obligation under the Uefa club licensing regulations.
12. Football Supporters Europe and its affiliated supporter organisations “need to be involved as meaningful stakeholders throughout the planning process” and their representatives need to act as “integrated observers” at the final. They should also be involved in post-match analysis.
13. Uefa should require the host FA to deploy customer service stewards at key parts of the transport network and across the final approach to the stadium, to give guidance to supporters and also provide information to control rooms.
14. Medical and first aid personnel should be always visible and accessible, including at access points, gates and in the stadium concourse.
15. Uefa’s post-match analysis process should be “more analytically and objectively robust”. Uefa should involve external “operational, academic, and supporter-based expertise”.
16: The Council of Europe monitoring committee should review how compliance with the Saint Denis convention can be better monitored and the obligations “more comprehensively enforced”.
17. The panel encourages the authorities in France to follow Council of Europe recommendations and those made by the French government official Michel Cadot, to improve management and oversight of major sporting events across ministries.
18. The French ministries of interior and sport should institute their own review of the policing model at sporting events. This should involve supporters’ representatives, experts and academics. Policing authorities should guarantee they will operate a “supporter engagement” model, and that riot police, teargas and pepper spray will only ever be used, proportionately, where deemed necessary due to a risk to life.
19. French authorities should review policy relating to retaining CCTV footage and other material for the purpose of investigations likely to improve security and public safety. Uefa should address this as a requirement from hosts.
20. Host stakeholders should “undertake robust scrutiny” to ensure their arrangements will comply with the Saint Denis convention. Uefa’s safety and security unit should be involved to ensure that compliance is being achieved during the planning process.
21. Uefa and the Council of Europe monitoring committee should look closely at their capacity to apply some of the above recommendations at other Uefa-governed fixtures besides the Champions League final, to avoid similar dangers developing. David Conn
On the French Football Federation
Uefa delegated many organisational issues to the FFF, including “planning and operating security and safety measures”, and the operation of the turnstiles.
“The panel concludes that FFF failed to establish effective interoperability with multiple partners, including the transport networks, Préfecture de Police, SDF and Uefa.”
The FFF failed to monitor the very large numbers of Liverpool supporters arriving on the train line RER D, and had conceded in a dispute with the police that these fans would be directed to the stadium via a checkpoint on the bottleneck route known to create access problems. It was a “serious failure” not to try to resolve these issues.
“The panel has further concluded that FFF failed to obtain or prepare a venue risk assessment, or to share a proper operational plan with partners, including Uefa.”
The turnstile arrangements were “unable to cope” with the increased pressure after the checkpoint was abandoned at 7.45pm. It was a “significant failure” to have no contingency plan to deal with the congestion at turnstiles, which “leads to an obviously dangerous crush situation”.
“A joint emergency strategy between the police and the stewards was vital to alleviating the dangerous situation outside the turnstiles … The panel has found no evidence of any organised attempt to do so.”
On blaming fans
“As the crisis in Paris unfolded, Uefa announced on big screens within the stadium and thereby via broadcasters to the world, that the delay in kick-off was due to ‘late’-arriving supporters. This claim was objectively untrue.”
“On the night and in the immediate aftermath of the events, French ministers, Uefa and others blamed thousands of supporters at the Liverpool end of the stadium whom they asserted sought to actively enter the stadium without valid tickets … The panel has found that the evidence does not support these assertions.”
Of Uefa’s press release put out immediately after the final: “Firstly, it blamed supporters with fake tickets. Secondly its original draft noted that locals had contributed to the problems. The first assertion was incorrect and should not have been made. The second was correct, but was edited out of the version that was published, at the request of the French authorities.”
The claims that there were huge numbers of supporters without valid tickets were “wrongly inflated” and “stated as fact, to deflect responsibility for the planning and operational failures of stakeholders. This is reprehensible and has involved Uefa, Uefa Events SA, FFF, the Préfecture de Police, government Officials and French ministers.”
