Most liked posts in thread: Liverpool fans...

There’s some sick comments on here.

and some fallacies too..

1) There were problems at the Madrid end too. There’s videos on social media of their fans scaling locked gates to get in.

2) There are also videos on social media of French fans being allowed into the ground without tickets which is likely what caused the problems.

Uefa changed their story on the evening. First it was “fans arrived late” and then when they realised that there was footage of fans locked out 2.5 hours before kick off the line changed to “fans got in without tickets”.

I could go on and go into the arguments RE Hillsborough and Heysel but I won’t because quite frankly it’s a well trodden argument and it isn’t worth the time or the effort to argue with some of you who see sporting tragedies as an opportunity to feed your tribalism and point score.

 

Based on my experience following England at multiple tournaments, UEFA events are comfortably the most difficult in terms of organisation out of any ticketed event I've attended in my life. Had a similar experience to what appears to have happened in Paris on Saturday when in Guimaraes for the Nations League a few years ago. Fans turned up in good time and were met with many gates closed and long queues. Multiple factors were at play including a failure with UEFA's ticketing system and a panicked police force. Can comfortably say that it was the most scary experience I've had in a crowd, through no fault of the crowd itself. After all, what else can you do apart from turn up well before kick off and try scan your ticket?

At the time we put it down to UEFA choosing an old style stadium to host its first high profile match for a long time. But the Stade de France is a modern facility that has hosted multiple events successfully and similar problems have emerged. The Mail on Sunday's Rob Draper wrote a detailed Twitter thread covering his experience entering the Stade de France on Saturday and it sounded similar to my experience in Guimaraes but on a much larger scale. I'd recommend Draper's thread as it clearly outlines the bizarre crowd control decisions that were made including gates being closed and kettling.

It is naive to solely blame supporters when there are so many things at play. Each case is different of course, but when the accounts of multiple sources sit so closely with what I've experienced at UEFA events in the past, it seems clear that the vast proportion of responsibility in this case sits with the organisation of the event.

 

Sad to read that people still blame Liverpool fans for some aspects of the Hillsborough disaster and are now saying things like 'Well they've got form for this sort of thing' etc.

The Liverpool fans were cleared of all blame. All. Stories of drunk fans, late fans, fans without tickets, fans storming gates and the rest were made up by police to cover their own dreadful handling of the situation. The crime is that those responsible haven't faced adequate justice.

 

These things are rarely just the fault of any one party. I've no doubt that disorganisation was a factor.

 

How "conclusive" do people need the videos of fans in red shirts climbing fences and barriers to get past check points to be? I've posted a few if anyone needs to look again.

I completely accept (and did from the start) that the organisation was absolutely horrendous and they should absolutely hand out fines and compensation where appropriate and the french police were nothing short of a disgrace in the few clips I've seen.

However, I still believe as football fans we have to accept that the disorganisation and chaos doesn't excuse the behaviour in the videos I posted and we can't always lay the blame elsewhere. At some point, as a club and as fans, they/we have to take some responsibility and if necessary take the action needed to prevent people like that accessing football matches.

These idiots are causing the kind of response to any trouble that you've seen in this thread and that thought process is replicated all over Britain and indeed Europe. That's not just purely down to ignorance or tribalism, a lot of it is because of the evidence you can witness for yourselves in these days of camera phones and all the numpties that want video trophies to show their mates.

 

Was is solely someone else's fault or should at least a few Liverpool fans shoulder the blame?

Fans, at some point, need to take responsibility that day, regardless of the nonsense that's trotted out.

 

Not like they have previous, is it?

 

Absolutely, there were many people at fault that terribly sad day. I just don't follow the peddled narrative that the only ones to blame were the police.

There has to be some responsibility taken by those fans who attended and then forced their way in without tickets. I know I'd feel very guilty if one of those were me and I certainly wouldn't repeat it like the Liverpool fans seemingly do at every major event they attend.

 

So what? You obviously haven't read them or you'd know that they're not opinion pieces. They are simply reporting the findings of the independent panel, appointed by UEFA itself, which is scathingly critical of EUFA, the French police and authorities and local youths and completely exonerates both sets of fans from blame for the problems. There's nothing in those articles that wasn't in the investigation report.

Anti-English? Excuse me, but you're the one trying to blame ordinary decent English football fans for a fiasco that was fairly and squarely caused by ineptitude of EUFA, the French authorities and French police.

 

Horrible lot, they really are.

 

This is exactly what happened in Madrid at I think it was their previous final against Spurs. A former work colleague of mine had a genuine ticket and was kicked out by security upon showing his ticket, so with Liverpool there definitely is previous of duplicate tickets. Unfortunately innocent people are usually the ones who lose out in these situations.

 

History repeats itself..Blame the victims - ordinary decent football fans - rather than the incompetence and self preservation of the authorities and the police:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/31/no-excuse-for-uefa-echoing-hillsborough-by-instantly-blaming-liverpool-fans-paris?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Liverpool are well advised to be extremely sceptical of any 'independent' enquiry organised by UEFA:

"A genuinely independent inquiry is needed to take evidence: about the catastrophic organisation of Uefa’s great final and the claims authorities have made to pass on their responsibility – including the announcements by Uefa. This is why a certain caution may be advisable, before trusting an inquiry Uefa itself has set up."

 

Money talks. The corporate sponsors were caught up in the chaos and suddenly there's an independent investigation launched:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-fans-uefa-champions-league-27134386

 

As a person trained in social science I recognise that there's no such thing as fully impartial. Everyone brings biases with them, however neutral they intend to be.
My bias is usually to trust the views representing ordinary people - in this case football fans - over those representing the vested interests of those in power, particularly when they have form for corruption and cover ups.

 

I have to be honest I was disappointed with the minutes silence at Goodison, not sure who's set of fans it was who were shouting but surely a minutes silence is not too much to ask of a fellow human beings.