FERGUSON TRUSTING UEFA

Last updated : 25 February 2007 By Editor

"We are still getting a lot of reports in from supporters and I think the club are dealing with that in the right way.

"Obviously I think there are a lot of precedents about crowd problems over the years and it's obviously a concern for the safety of people in the crowd. My son [Mark] and Gary Neville's father were in the crowd so there is always that worry about their safety.

"I didn't know Mark was in there until after the game..

"But that doesn't really matter. If you have supporters in there, you have to be concerned for them. There are too many precedents in football history to strengthen your fears in that respect.

"It was a concern at the time but the club are dealing with it now.

"They have been speaking to a lot of the fans who were there, so there are plenty of witness reports on it. Hopefully we can put the matter to rest and UEFA can deal with it straightaway.

"It's in Uefa's hands but we are confident. I'm sure their supporters will be looked after better than ours were when they come to Old Trafford."


The NOTW publish a video which proves that stewards locked the gates. Their report here:

United insist: Security gates were

CHAINED shut by stewards to stop supporters escaping the crush.

Fans trying to flee the chaos were SPRAYED with tear gas. Other fans were ATTACKED by riot police with dogs.

Panic-stricken women and children were THROWN back into the over-crowded stand.

United fan Mark Harrison, 27, passed on his mobile phone video footage to the club.

He said: "My worst memory was seeing a young girl clinging to the 10ft-high fence at the front of the United section.

"She couldn't have been more than 15 and was terrified and crying. She wanted to get out.

"What did the police do? They sprayed tear gas in her face. I've never seen anything like it.

"Nobody checked our tickets and that, ultimately, was what caused the problem. After kick-off, loads of fans were trying to get in, some with genuine tickets, some with fakes and others with no tickets at all. The police and stewards panicked and let them in. A crush quickly developed at the front and everybody was just thinking, 'Let this not be another Hillsborough'.

"It was terrifying. We were pleading with police and stewards to let us out but they just thought we wanted trouble.

"A couple of lads managed to get out over the top. We also managed to open a safety gate.

"But the police beat us back with batons. The tear gas wasn't nice either. Our throats were burning. It was horrendous."

United keeper Edwin van der Sar said: "The tear gas was a big problem. I had blurred vision and a headache."

Some fans are considering legal action and UEFA are due to reveal their findings on March 22. But Lille general manager Xavier Thuilot said: "United are seeking to put all the blame on our club. This is unacceptable and inadmissible. It's clear United fans provoked the problems."

 

PLATINI TOLD TO ACT FIRM

New UEFA president is told to act tough.

Nick Townsend in the Indie:

On a grim, sombre night for football, the spectacle of crowd panic, perimeter fencing and police aggressively responding, inside and outside the Stade Felix Bollaert, is one that should have had no place in the Champions' League in 2007.

What does it say about a sport - the elite, monied end, with its televised image bounced around the world - when spectators are still penned in? Sadly, that is not uncommon on the Continent, where the priority appears to be crowd control before crowd safety. Before we condemn that approach out of hand, it should be remembered that such a robust approach is the legacy of a hooliganism still prevalent in Europe and the behaviour of followers of England and English teams in the past.

But that does not in any way excuse the scenes we witnessed on Tuesday night. The new Uefa president, Michel Platini, must be thankful that there were no serious casualties. But if the Frenchman believed he could ease himself gently into his post, he was mistaken. The whole affair calls for strong leadership on his part.

Only one aspect of the night has had an inevitable conclusion: Lille's ludicrous objection to Ryan Giggs's winning goal for Manchester United from a swiftly taken free-kick, a strategy borrowed from the Thierry Henry textbook. Their protest has correctly been cast out by Uefa - indeed, there is an argument that they should have been punished for bringing a spurious complaint - and the French club charged over their threat to leave the pitch. That cannot be in any way condoned, and the best they can anticipate is a suspended sentence.

The real horrors occurred well before that goal gave United victory towards the end of a tedious contest played on the wretched surface of Lille's adopted Lens stadium. Both the hosts and United have attempted to claim the higher moral ground of what caused the problems at the "away" end, and the reaction of officials and police to it.

Afterwards there were the ritual laments from United travellers: recollections of brutal policing and poor stewarding. Certainly, any unnecessary over-reaction must be condemned outright, although Lille, their head of security, and the police, in counter-recrimination, have vigorously defended their actions. The truth, or something approaching it, will emerge on 22 March when Uefa's disciplinary committee meet. Though one would not want to pre-empt that, clearly there was a breakdown in crowd control.

Yet, 18 years after Hillsborough and 22 years after Heysel, there should never have been that opportunity for the scene that unfolded; not in an all-seater stadium, and not if the appropriate number of spectators holding authentic tickets had been admitted. That appears to have been the crux of the problem.

There may be those among the MPs and commentators who have called for the reintroduction of so-called "safe standing areas" who will regard Tuesday's events as some kind of vindication for their campaign; the argument being that seated areas can be dangerous, too. If so, those arguments should be resisted firmly.