UEFA’s disregard for Dortmund was shameful

WHEN UEFA ordered Borussia Dortmund to play Monaco 24 hours after the bombing of their team bus, the BBC News at Ten was in no doubt. This was a good thing. Number one in the media phrase book covering terrorist atrocities is an old adage: terrorists must never be allowed to win. Listen, you can certainly understand the sentiment. In most other instances, you admire it. If UEFA had been making a stand against a couple of madmen, you could have forgiven them. Applauded them, even. But what they actually did was place the needs of broadcasters, sponsors and a few Monaco charter flights before the basic human rights of footballers who were just seconds away from being murdered by three pipe bombs. In the aftermath of Dortmund’s inevitable 3-2 defeat, Turkish midfielder Nuri Sahin gave a powerful, dignified response to Norwegian television. ‘I know football is very important,’ said Sahin. ‘I know we earn a lot of money and have a privileged life, but we are human beings. There is so much more than football in this world and last night we felt it.’ As his team-mate Marc Bartra lay in hospital following arm surgery, BVB players were aware of how fortunate they were to be alive. What happened in Dortmund was not a flurry of snow. Nor was it simply a loose advertising board causing a few health and safety concerns. Not even, as BVB boss Thomas Tuchel put it, a can of beer being thrown at the bus. It was a targeted attempt to kill and maim a group of professional athletes. If UEFA don’t deem that an adequate reason to cancel a Champions League match for a week or two, what the hell is? What would it take to tell a broadcaster who has paid a few quid for a game of football: ‘Sorry, lads, not this week...’ Clubs like Borussia Dortmund spend millions to reach the last eight of Europe’s premier competition. They pay sports psychologists, dieticians, video analysts and the best coaches fortunes to enhance their chances of success. But no chapter in the sports scientists’ journal covers a footballer preparing for a huge game 24 hours after a maniac has tried to blow him to smithereens. UEFA had a tough call to make, we get that. But their final decision was shameful.