Campaigners to quiz Paris 2024 on disabled fans’ safety after Champions League ‘disgrace’

A disabled-led charity is to write to organisers of next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris to raise concerns about the safety of disabled visitors, following a damning report into last year’s UEFA Champions League final.

An independent review into the “disgraceful” events around last May’s final between Liverpool and Real Madrid at the Stade de France found that failings by football’s European governing body UEFA and French authorities caused “suffering for many fans” through severe congestion and almost turned into a “mass fatality catastrophe”.

But the Stade de France (pictured) is also due to host next year’s athletics events at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as the Olympics rugby sevens and the two closing ceremonies, while the stadium will also be hosting 10 matches, including the final, at this year’s Rugby World Cup.

Level Playing Field (LPF), the disabled-led charity which represents disabled supporters in England and Wales, told Disability News Service yesterday (Wednesday) that it would write to the organisers of both the Rugby World Cup and Paris 2024 to seek reassurances.

Owain Davies, LPF’s chief executive, said: “Like any situation where a negative experience happens, there is rightly a fear will it happen again.”

He said LPF will ask the organisers of both events to “learn from the unfortunate events in May 2022”.

The independent review (PDF), published this week, cleared Liverpool fans of responsibility for the events before, during and after last May’s final, even though they had previously been blamed for the dangerous levels of congestion by UEFA, French ministers and others.

French police used tear gas and pepper spray on locals and football supporters near the ground, and “failed to protect supporters from widespread street violence in the vicinity of the stadium”, the review found.

Many disabled fans attended the game, and among those giving evidence to the review was Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association (LDSA), which provided “harrowing personal statements” from disabled supporters.

Among their concerns were a lack of signage about accessible gates and priority lanes, which meant disabled fans had to join the regular queues at the turnstiles, while there were also “multiple reports of stewards not being aware of accessible services at the stadium”.

The tear gas and pepper spray used by police in several areas outside the stadium affected many disabled fans, says the review report, with some ending up separated from their companions and “placed into extremely dangerous, vulnerable, and frightening situations”.

In his evidence, Ted Morris, LDSA’s chair, said: “In my opinion, it was only thanks to the restraint and actions shown by [Liverpool] supporters… that a major disaster and probably a death were averted. No one in authority helped our disabled supporters.

“The saddest thing about this is that our disabled fans have arrived in Paris to attend a football festival, but at that very moment, they are in the middle of a carnival of horrors, which will leave them with long-term mental scars.”

Daniel Seaman, who is blind, and his wife Kate, fled the ground before the end of the match and heard what they thought was a gun firing and witnessed bottles flying through the air.

They found themselves in an underpass which the police had blocked at one end, and then felt the crowd pushing against them from behind.

Kate Seaman told the review: “We both admitted afterwards that [the Hillsborough disaster] was all that was in our minds.

“We both had thoughts that we were not getting out of that underpass alive.”

Morris said the authorities had “treated disabled fans like animals” and the treatment they received “will be to the eternal shame of all those in authority who were there to protect us, they were responsible for our safety, but they failed.

“It was a complete dereliction of duty.”

LDSA has raised multiple concerns about the treatment of disabled supporters, including inadequate transport; police methods “caused severe distress to disabled supporters, leaving them fearing for their lives”; crushes and crowd surges “left disabled supporters fearing for their lives”; a “complete lack of accessible signage”; no trained accessibility stewards on the entrance gates; and accessible toilets that were unfit for purpose.

LDSA also said that on arrival back at La Plaine Stade de France rail station, French police “indiscriminately gassed, and pepper sprayed disabled Liverpool fans who had been running for their lives”.

LDSA said in its statement that the “heavy-handed approach of the Police is a stain on France, and it is only because of the exemplary behaviour of Liverpool fans that there wasn’t a loss of life”.

The review panel said it agreed with the conclusions drawn by LDSA, and was “sympathetic to the comments made”.

In addition to its wider conclusions about the event, the review said the service provision for disabled supporters “fell far short of that which should reasonably have been expected” and that “UEFA failed to adequately ensure the event met its obligations toward disabled supporters”.

It said that the “severity and magnitude of the negative experiences of disabled supporters” at last year’s final was “beyond the capacity of this review to fully assess”, and it was clear that “such failures and experiences are not isolated” to last year’s final.

The review panel also said that the “continuing failure” to meet minimum standards for disabled supporters showed the need for “an urgent dedicated review” to address the improvements needed ahead of future UEFA events, including this year’s Champions League final.

Davies told DNS: “We hope that the organizers of the upcoming [Olympics and Paralympics] and Rugby World Cup take the situation seriously and ensure that the recommendations outlined in the report are considered and there are suitable plans in place which reflect this.

“We expect organisers to give assurances which will build back confidence for disabled fans.

“We are pleased however with how much detail the independent report has gone into with the experience of disabled fans and worked closely with Liverpool DSA in gathering this insight.

“As a charity our mandate is to cover events in England and Wales. We have been involved in the event through Liverpool’s participation in the Champions League final.

“We will share official access information in the build up to the events for traveling English and Welsh Fans.”

A Level Playing Field spokesperson said earlier: “In the 21st century, we should not expect there to be a shortfall in the service provided for disabled supporters; there is – quite rightly – an anticipatory expectation bestowed on service providers, which means they are required to deliver an inclusive, reliable, but most of all, safe matchday environment.

“None of these requirements were met.”

Following last year’s final, Level Playing Field called on UEFA to take its obligations as a service-provider seriously.

It said UEFA now needed to ensure there was “clear and meaningful engagement with all stakeholders, including disabled fans, to deliver these going forward to ensure that there is never a repetition of the events we saw at the Champions League final”.

Ted Morris also gave evidence on behalf of disabled Liverpool fans at a hearing last June as part of an inquiry by the French Senate, where he highlighted the “shocking and, at times, terrifying experience of disabled supporters”.

The Senate’s report also cleared Liverpool fans of blame.

In a statement published this week, Morris said: “One of the lessons that must be taken from this report is that in terms of making European football accessible, UEFA has much work to do.

“We ask that they work with us and seek our expertise to address these injustices and give young disabled supporters from all corners of Europe hope that one day they can follow their football team in the same way that non-disabled children can.

“Equality and fairness should not be a fight; it must be a right.

“In 2023 and with the knowledge of the terrifying experiences disabled supporters experienced in Paris, this is not and should not be an impossible dream.”

Picture by Google

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Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

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Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…