Berlin, March 15, (dpa/GNA) – UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, has apologised for the chaos around last year’s Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool in Paris.
“The institutions have apologised and if you want, I will apologise as well. There is no one within UEFA who doesn’t regret what has happened,” Ceferin told German broadcasters ZDF in an interview published on Tuesday.
“We were in the VIP section and weren’t aware of what had happened. We only learnt about the whole choas after the match.
“The problem is that we as UEFA have no saying in the stadium, that is with the organizer. But we also made mistakes and will make sure that a situation like this doesn’t arise again.”
An independent report released last month found UEFA “primarily responsible” for what happened outside the Stade de France, speaking of a “large number of near misses that nearly led to disaster.”
Liverpool fans were initially blamed by French authorities for a delay of the kick-off, with fans risking crushes and being tear-gassed by French police.
UEFA said last week that all 19,618 Liverpool supporters with tickets to the final would be reimbursed. The same applied to not all Madrid fans, which drew an angry response from the club to reimburse all of their fans as it named conditions at the game “unacceptable”.
GNA