Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has slammed BT Sport's coverage of the Champions League final after viewers were left in the dark over the chaos outside the Stade de France ahead of kick.
Real Madrid's win over Liverpool was soured by unsavoury scenes outside the stadium, which led to kick-off being delayed by half an hour. A huge number of Reds fans struggled to get into the ground and even had tear gas used on them.
But as the horrific situation unfolded, the BT Sport team seemed helpless and struggled to provide any real information on the problems outside the stadium. Even as the situation developed, they failed to give viewers any sort of meaningful updates and were slammed online for their hapless coverage.
And Neville - who is a regular on rival Sky Sports' football coverage - absolutely tore into BT on his Twitter account. The former Manchester United ace quote-tweeted a post that said: "Surprised BT sport don’t have a team on standby outside of stadium, getting little to no sense of the major story from the broadcaster," and remarked: "Are you surprised? I’m not.They can’t react or aren’t agile to things like this happening".
He continued to hit out at the lack of coverage by retweeting and liking a number of other scathing messages. Neville shared and liked one tweet which read: "Fair to say BT Sport and their lightweight team are totally unsuited to covering an event like this still chatting football 5 Live covering what is happening properly".
Another tweet was also shared and liked by Neville, which read: "You’d have thought BT have enough cameras to send someone outside and film the carnage to inform viewers. Prattling on with pundits and waiting for an opening ceremony is reminiscent of the tone-deaf TV coverage in build-up to Euro 2020 final amid chaos outside."
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UEFA have already come under fire from fans online after they suggested that the delay to the match and the issues outside the stadium were down to fans arriving late. Unsurprisingly, they quickly backtracked on those claims and instead blamed "security issues" for the delays, which affected a host of Liverpool fans.
A number of famous faces were also caught up in the chaos, including Match of the Day host Gary Lineker and Joel Matip's brother, Marvin, and his pregnant wife.
The couple were left with no choice but to seek cover inside a nearby restaurant, with Marvin telling Sky Sport: "The organisation around and in the stadium is unworthy of a Champions League final! Using tear gas in areas with children and uninvolved fans is dangerous."
During the latter stages of the game, which saw Vinicius' second-half winner secure the triumph, UEFA released a statement and blamed "fake tickets" for the chaos that occurred outside the stadium.
Liverpool have demanded a "formal investigation" into what happened, with UEFA releasing a statement reading: "In the lead-up to the game, the turnstiles at the Liverpool end became blocked by thousands of fans who had purchased fake tickets which did not work in the turnstiles.
"This created a build-up of fans trying to get in. As a result, the kick-off was delayed by 35 minutes to allow as many fans as possible with genuine tickets to gain access.
"As numbers outside the stadium continued to build up after kick-off, the police dispersed them with tear gas and forced them away from the stadium. UEFA is sympathetic to those affected by these events and will further review these matters urgently together with the French police and authorities, and with the French Football Federation."
Liverpool's statement read: "We are hugely disappointed at the stadium entry issues and breakdown of the security perimeter that Liverpool fans faced this evening at Stade de France.
"This is the greatest match in European football and supporters should not have to experience the scenes we have witnessed tonight. We have officially requested a formal investigation into the causes of these unacceptable issues."
