‘Terrified’: what Liverpool and Real Madrid fans told Uefa panel
The Uefa panel received 8,500 Liverpool supporters’ testimonies submitted to the club, extensive further written evidence and also conducted interviews with Liverpool and Real Madrid supporters, as well as Liverpool club officials, about their experiences.
Ted Morris, chair of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association
“I started receiving messages saying our disabled supporters were being gassed and crushed outside the turnstiles … they were terrified and panicking. It was harrowing to receive these messages with me unable to help them. They said the situation outside the stadium was becoming critical, and they feared for their lives. I thought many of our disabled supporters were now in danger of being crushed. This group included children with disabilities, blind fans and wheelchair users.
“In my opinion, it was only thanks to the restraint and actions shown by the supporters of Liverpool that a major disaster and probably a death were averted. No one in authority helped our disabled supporters. The saddest thing about this is that our disabled fans have arrived in Paris to attend a football festival, but at that very moment, they are in the middle of a carnival of horrors, which will leave them with long-term mental scars”.
Ian Byrne MP, Liverpool supporter
“There was very clearly a palpable feeling of fear and terrifying deja vu for
LFC supporters of my generation. I was 16 at the time of Hillsborough and 50 at the time of Paris, but when I witnessed the scenes of fans being crushed against the railings at the turnstiles in gate Z, including many women and children, it chilled my soul. I was instantly taken back to Leppings Lane and April 15th 1989. I feared contemplating the potential scale of what could unfold in Paris because so many people were suffering the same experiences around the stadium.
“I feared a loss of life greater than at Hillsborough. Panic began setting in and I considered what I could do to help, both as an elected representative of parliament and as a Hillsborough survivor. I felt a profound duty of care to my fellow supporters, but I felt helpless. I did however take confidence from and pride in the absolutely magnificent behaviour of the Liverpool supporters, who kept calm despite the worst provocation I’ve ever seen at a football match by the people who were supposed to be in control of the event.”
Real Madrid supporter Pablo Sanz, about the approach to the stadium:
“In my view the main failure of organisation was right when we went out from the subway. We were caught in a trap … with zero room to move ... If anything would have happened there, I guess that dozens or hundreds of people might have died because we couldn’t move … I saw women of 70 years old, child[ren] of 10 years old really frightened … The people kept on arriving [from] the subway at a higher speed than they were exiting to the stadium. That was really frightening … Thieves started to act … I saw people [having their mobile phones stolen] with their tickets, they were reacting and there was no room, so it was really, really dangerous.”
Liverpool FC
Club officials interviewed by the panel were highly critical of the organisation and questioned Uefa’s decision to hold the final in Paris. Particular objections were made to the French police misconceptions that Liverpool supporters represented a risk of hooliganism, which included a reference to the Hillsborough disaster in the police intelligence.
The panel quotes the reaction of an official representing Liverpool: “Absolute outrage. Outrage … They’ve conflated hooliganism with Hillsborough … It’s such a calamitous error of judgment, it beggars belief. I think the mindset, to have referred to an event which happened over 30 years ago, which has been proven to have nothing to do with hooliganism and … nothing to do with the behaviour of the fans, I think just, absolutely beggars belief … We couldn’t have been more outraged and more offended on behalf of the [bereaved Hillsborough] families, on behalf of our fan base, on behalf of the club and the reputational damage that comments like that continue to do to Liverpool … our fans, but also to supporters more widely. It’s unbelievably outrageous to have made those comments.”*