Dhe realization that the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and its President Aleksander Čeferin now have in black and white is staggering: last season’s Champions League final in Paris could have ended in disaster.
It was “remarkable that no one lost his life,” according to the independent investigation report published by UEFA on Monday evening. A stadium disaster at the biggest club football game on the planet, in a European metropolis, within the realm of possibility?
Far below level
It is a testament to failure which, after six months of investigative work and 220 pages of reporting, concludes that UEFA bears primary responsibility – for having blatantly neglected the issue of security, even if, as is usual at such events, the specific execution is in the lay in the hands of the unsuspecting, planless and ultimately also ruthless local forces.
On May 28, 2022 in front of the Stade de France, you didn’t have to be sprayed with tear gas in the face, narrowed on the access roads or pushed against stadium fences to feel: the organization of this final is far below the required level.
Scandal within scandal
From the point of view of the fans of Liverpool FC who were primarily affected, the feeling of panic and perhaps even fear of death at the gates must have been followed by another, that of anger and powerlessness: when they felt the shame of UEFA and the French organizers during the evening responsibility has been shifted. Ironically, fans of the club that was branded as a collective trauma by the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 with 97 deaths and a long period of “processing” that turned victims into perpetrators. That was the scandal within the scandal for which UEFA, at least, apologized.
The fact that the obvious thing was said by General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis and not by President Čeferin is another impertinence. That Čeferin, who incidentally, as the report says, made the (correct) decision to postpone the kick-off himself: while he was sitting in the VIP area with the Spanish king and although other ways would have been required. A detail that once again sheds a special light on the structural chaos that broke out under the sovereignty of the President.
The minimum is that his association is now implementing the report’s suggestions for future improvements, as Liverpool FC are demanding. However, UEFA cannot avoid naming responsibilities within its own structures. Because one thing is actually inconceivable: that people almost lose their lives in a football game, but nobody their job.
