Uefa`s shameful handling of the Champions League final in Athens this year and then its cowardly attempt to blame the Liverpool supporters for the fiasco shows that major changes are needed to make Uefa accountable for its actions.
Athens was a complete shambles, but Uefa`s shame was in the fact that they had been warned well before the final of exactly what would happen, but because they know best they totally ignored all advice and instead pretended that it would be all right on the night.
As with all clubs there is a tiny percentage of fans that are looking for trouble and the bigger the club the bigger the fan base is, those numbers go up, but there would have been no trouble in Athens if Uefa had listened to the advice and warnings that they were given. The problems started when Uefa gave only a paltry 17,000 tickets to each club in a stadium that holds 63,000. Uefa gave 20,000 of the tickets to the 'Uefa family' and a further 9,000 via a ballot. So Uefa actually gave nearly half the tickets to non fans of either club, this is madness and it highlights how this organisation has no regard for the clubs or their fans that it is supposed to represent.
They were also pre-warned that there was forgeries on the open market but decided that the best course of action to take was no action at all and this is what caused the biggest problems. Fans with forged tickets entered the ground, many who thought their tickets were legitimate and left many standing outside with real tickets only to be told that the stadium was full.
The whole affair was a complete mess and as i said before it could have been totally avoided if Uefa had not thought that they know best.
But the claims made by Uefa spokesman William Gaillard that `Liverpool supporters are the worst behaved in Europe´ beggars belief, this is the very same man that just before the final said that Liverpool supporters 'have a tradition of good behaviour'.
So which version from the same man only a couple of weeks apart do we believe. The first version or the second one that was made after the Athens debacle, the debacle that Mr Gaillard and his partner in stupidity Mr Platini caused because they believe that they always know best and never let the facts interfere with there beliefs.
English football has had its problems in the past and was without doubt the worst villain in Europe in the 80`s, but if we look at the 3 top leagues in Europe now The Premiership comes out head and shoulders against the rest. It is a league where Racism has for the most part been removed unlike in Spain and Italy where the ignorant masses are rampant and can still give shout their monkey chants and other racist remarks at certain players and face little or no consequences whatsoever. In Rome, Man Utd were warned beforehand of the deadly hooligan Roma fans, but like Spurs in Spain no one warned them of the hooligan type police, that battered all before them. In Italy you could see why police would be wary of fans because in the horrible old days of English hooliganism fans wanted to beat up opposing fans but in Italy they have taken it to a whole new level by throwing explosives at police trying to kill them and have been successful. But despite this, idiots at Uefa have decided that to cover-up their own mistakes Liverpool Football Club must carry the banner of the worst fans in Europe.
This all reminds me of Will Carlings famous description of the Rugby Football Union Committee as "57 old farts". Now i don't know how many old farts there are in Uefa but this latest Uefa show of `We answer to no one´ really should open up the debate would football be better served if the G14 had more influence and i really hope the G14 is expanded to nearly all clubs not just the rich, to show that there really is an alternative to this out of date, dying dinosaur of an organisation led by people who seem to value there own importance above the people that makes the very existence of their very precious organisation possible, the players and the fans of the clubs that they seem to have little or no respect for.
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