Police spoil trips abroad, study shows
ONE of the citadels of European football — Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu — provides a dire matchgoing experience, with hostile policing, limited facilities and a pitiful view of the match, a survey of British fans has revealed.
The survey of supporters from nine British clubs who have recently played in Europe — coordinated by the UK Football Policing Unit and aimed at helping British fans who travel abroad — paints a mixed picture of continental experiences.
The quality of German policing and match management make fan experiences there excellent — yet Spain, Italy and France present a different story.
Manchester City and Chelsea fans both described policing around the Bernabeu as extremely antagonistic, with hour-long waits to leave the ground. Chelsea fans told the survey that ‘Real Madrid was a disgrace of the highest order’. City fans said: ‘The attitude of police was confrontational.’
Supporters described pathetic views of the match, high up in the stand and behind netting. It was like watching ‘a game of Subbuteo through a teabag,’ said Simon Walker of the City Matters fan group.
The fan experience in Belgium, Denmark and at Dutch club Ajax were positive and Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association spokesperson Ted Morris described a ‘watershed’ in UEFA’s approach to supporter welfare since the Paris Champions League final scandal of 2022.
UEFA now demand a minimum 15 away fan wheelchair spaces. In the past, clubs such as Real and Barcelona provided four or five, in front of local ultras. But nearly two years after the Paris final, the survey provides evidence of heavy-handed policing across France. Chelsea fans reported being tear-gassed at Lille in 2022, while Newcastle supporters recalled being ‘kettled’ on a stairway by police in Paris.
Brighton fans reported being made to feel ‘like hooligans’ when watching their team play at AEK Athens, with police unwilling to intervene when home ultras threw missiles at them, and CS gas blowing on to them when deployed on local hooligans.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts, head of the police unit, said the 62-page survey document had been circulated to national football police units across Europe. At least one unit wants to actively engage with this process and it is hoped others will follow. UEFA are supportive.
One of the challenges is the decades-old reputation for antisocial behaviour which British fans take into Europe.
Roberts said: ‘Some European forces have that opinion. But they don’t just roll out this approach for our fans.’
European football authorities will say that England must put its own house in order — given how cocaine-fuelled fans disgracefully forced their way through security and into Wembley before the Euro 2020 final.
Roberts said that changes had been made to ensure there would be no repeat at Wembley’s Champions League final on June 1. He said: ‘Everyone is alive to the fact that we need a successful event before Euro 2028, which the UK and Ireland are hosting.’