Uefa to reimburse Liverpool fans for Champions League incidents

UEFA announced on Tuesday that it will refund money to all Liverpool fans who attended the final Champions League of last year in Paris, marred by incidents around the Stade de France that mainly affected the English fans.

Heavily criticized in mid-February by a report by an independent investigation, the European federation will refund the tickets purchased by ‘Reds’ fans (19,618 in total) and will entrust the club with the organization of payments.

fans of Real Madrid and others who were affected by the pre-match chaos can also request a refund of their ticket money, but each case will be reviewed on an individual basis.

“We recognize the negative experiences lived by these fans” on May 28, 2022, “and thanks to this program, we will reimburse those who bought tickets and were the most affected by the difficulties in accessing the stadium”, declared Theodore Theodoridis, general secretary from UEFA.

Research conclusions

“We took into account a large number of views expressed publicly and privately, and we believe we have created a complete and equitable system,” explained Theodoridis.

Endless waiting, fans hit by tear gas and victims of robberies… Failures in the safety device for the match, which started 37 minutes late and ended with Real Madrid winning 1-0, allowed for scenes of chaos in Saint-Denis, provoking a controversy between France and England.

The independent investigation commissioned by UEFA concluded that the “first responsibility” for the serious incidents lay with the entity itself and criticized the French police for the use of tear gas and pepper spray.

Above all, the report exonerates Liverpool fans from any responsibility, who were initially accused by UEFA of having arrived late and then by French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin of having tried to enter the stadium with tickets. fake.

The investigators concluded that there was “no evidence of an abnormally high number of fans without tickets or with invalid tickets”, questioning the figures presented by the authorities, “falsely inflated and exaggerated”, and suggesting that such changes could be intended to “deflect responsibility of operational failures”.

Let’s face the @realmadrid na final da #UCL 👊 pic.twitter.com/57aFKf6NuL

— Liverpool FC Brasil (@LFFCBrasil) May 4, 2022

“This does not exempt UEFA”

On the other hand, the investigation treats with “astonishment” the fact that the order maintenance scheme may have been influenced by the image of Liverpool fans branded as ‘hooligans’, a “false and inexplicable idea”.

“Fans were gassed, robbed, attacked. There were people who feared for their lives. What could have been a defining moment of the season for England and Spain fans turned into chaos,” he said in mid-February. oa Spirit of Shankly, one of the main organized supporters of the ‘Reds’.

In a statement, Liverpool explained that the initiative is a “Uefa refund policy” and that the club’s role will be to “administer refunds to fans”.

Meanwhile, the Spirit of Shankly and the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association consider that the European FA “has begun to move towards acknowledging its guilt in the fiasco”.

“But this does not excuse UEFA, nor does it exempt it from criticism or lessen the need to implement all the recommendations of the independent investigation”, add the organized supporters.