December 03, (THEWILL) –Â According to an independent investigation into the chaos at the Euro 2020 final, “ticketless, drunken and drugged-up thugs” may have caused fatality at Wembley. England lost on penalties to Italy, although the game was overshadowed by crowd disturbance both before, during and after the match.
According to Baroness Louise Casey’s assessment, 2,000 persons were able to gain unauthorised admission to Wembley Stadium, with 17 mass breaches of disabled access gates and emergency fire doors.
It was a “day of national shame” according to Baroness Casey, who described the situation as “an appalling scene of disorder” and concluded that there was a “collective failure” in preparing sufficient stewarding and police deployment.
She stressed, though, that individuals who “lost control of their own behaviour” bear major responsibility for the disorder.
Lady Casey continued: “Our team of role models were in our first major final for 55 years. However they were let down by a horde of ticketless, drunken and drugged up thugs who chose to abuse innocent, vulnerable and disabled people, as well as police officers, volunteers and Wembley staff.
“We are genuinely lucky that there was not much more serious injury or worse, and need to take the toughest possible action against people who think a football match is somehow an excuse to behave like that.
“I am clear that the primary responsibility for what went wrong at Wembley that day lies with those who lost control of their own behaviour.”
According to the Metropolitan Police, 51 arrests were made in connection with the final, with 26 of them taking place at Wembley Stadium.
A penalty shootout victory for England might have resulted in a “further huge public safety risk” according to the study, with as many as 6,000 more fans expected to descend on the stadium to celebrate and the scale of casualties could have multiplied.
Due of coronavirus limitations, 25,000 seats at Wembley were left empty for the match.
Following the turmoil, UEFA fined the English Football Association (FA) £84,560 and ordered them to play one match behind closed doors, as THEWILL reported.
Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive, who apologised to those who suffered a “terrible experience” at Wembley said: “We fully accept the report’s findings and there are important learnings for us, as well as other agencies involved. Collectively we must never allow this to happen again.
“The lessons learned from this review will ensure that fans have a good experience at major international events at Wembley, as they have for many years.”
Lady Casey suggested a number of broad improvements in the report to avoid a repeat, including:
– Empowering authorities to act more strongly against fans using drugs, flares and smoke bombs at matches and around stadiums and entering stadiums without a ticket.
– A Football Association campaign to force “a sea-change in attitudes towards supporter behaviours”.
Better communication between the agencies overseeing the match and the flow of fans to the stadium.
– A new category for football matches “of national significance” to make organisers aware of the unique challenges of such major events.
The next men’s international window begins on January 24, 2022.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
