UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says he “feels sorry” for the events that unfolded at last season’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris.
Liverpool were beaten 1-0 by Madrid at the Stade de France but the match was overshadowed by the chaos outside the stadium. Fans were attacked by local youths and tear-gassed by French police as they waited for hours to get into the game on May 28 last year.
The days that followed saw authorities in France try to blame ticketless supporters for the issues, which were later disproven by an independent report. Liverpool fans were commended for their behaviour outside the stadium and for remaining calm, which helped prevent a disaster.
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Earlier this month, UEFA announced that they would refund the tickets for all Reds supporters who were caught up in the events outside the Stade de France. Close to 20,000 refunds will be available to all fans with tickets for gates A, B, C, X, Y and Z.
Now Ceferin has spoken about what happened in Paris last May for the first time since the independent panel's report, which found UEFA "primarily responsible". “I feel sorry for what happened and we will make sure that it doesn’t happen again, that’s the most important thing for me,” Ceferin told The Overlap, via The Times.
“When I went to the match, I had a meeting with the King of Spain and someone came and said there is a problem with some entrances with the fans. We didn’t know how serious that was back then, because UEFA does not have jurisdiction outside the stadium. The French police did not communicate with us.
“Trust me, there is not a single person in UEFA who is not terribly sorry, and the main topic of conversation is how to make sure that it does not happen again. Thank God, nothing terrible happened.
“We have to have better communication with the local authorities because in London [at the Euro 2021 final] again it was not UEFA who should protect outside the stadium, it was local police and, obviously, not very successfully.
“We are doing everything we can and we will not let it happen again.”
Ceferin also accepted that UEFA's initial statement blaming ticketless fans was a "mistake". He added: "It was hard to check what was right and what was wrong, we got some strange information. I really didn't know the scale of the thing that was happening."
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