Uefa to involve fans in planning finals after 2022 Champions League chaos
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Thousands of Liverpool supporters were unable to get into the Stade de France for the 2022 Champions League final.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
PARIS – Uefa will involve football fans in the “planning and execution” of finals, it said on Friday, as it announced plans to implement recommendations made by an independent panel following the chaos at the 2022 Champions League showpiece.
The Champions League final was delayed by 36 minutes after thousands of Liverpool supporters were unable to get into the Stade de France for the match on May 28, which Real Madrid won 1-0.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, apologised to Liverpool for initially blaming the Merseyside club’s fans for the mayhem following the release of the review in February.
It said it has since had “positive dialogue” with fans through the group Football Supporters Europe (FSE) to ensure they are involved in finals in the future.
“We are fully committed to ensuring that every football fan can enjoy their team’s appearance in a Uefa final in a safe, secure and welcoming environment,” Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis said in a statement.
“We have developed and implemented comprehensive operational measures which incorporate the recommendations... and the valuable input of fan groups to enhance safety and security at finals.”
Uefa said it would work with FSE, its supporters’ network and finalists to determine how many fans would be travelling to the host cities, make arrangements along with the local authorities such as setting up fan zones and improving fan communication.
“FSE representatives are also integrated into the match-day operational teams for each final and are part of the revised comprehensive debrief process to ensure lessons learnt,” it said.
Uefa said it has increased the number of its safety and security officers who will cover finals while it has commissioned crowd-modelling reports for finals in 2023.
It also said it has established a process to avoid a repeat of 2022, when CCTV footage from the stadium was destroyed after the game.
Meanwhile, Fifa secretary-general Fatma Samoura is confident the global governing body’s threat of a Women’s World Cup TV blackout in Europe in 2023 will bring broadcasters to the table with improved offers for the rights.
The rights are being sold separately from the men’s World Cup for the first time and Fifa president Gianni Infantino said last week that Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Italy would face a blackout unless “unacceptable” bids were improved.
Samoura told Australia’s Fox Sports News on Saturday: “I’m sure an agreement will be reached. We have already been having positive feedback from three of the countries that we have opened the discussion (with) and... we still have 80 days to go before the kick-off.”
There are no such issues in English football. The English Football League has approved a record broadcasting deal with Sky Sports worth £935 million (S$1.57 billion) over a five-year period (from the 2024-25 to 2028-29 seasons), a 50 per cent increase on the value of the current rights agreement, it said on Friday. REUTERS
