Liverpool fans the worst in Europe - Official!

[J70]

Jesus lads, you can't blame everthing on Man U fans and UEFA!

Do you not agree that stealing match tickets off children is a bit low?

Who's blaming anything on United fans? Who is blaming everything on UEFA?

There were numerous posts on this board by Liverpool fans condemning the low-lifes who were stealing the tickets.

[ExiledGael]

Jesus does this have to be rehashed.
Numerous arguments about this, but Liverpool fans have accepted that some of their support behaved terribly. None of them dispute the bad acts of a few so stop saying calling for all their heads, and I'm a United fan.
There were Scouse scumbags to blame for certain things, but UEFA are behaving much worse here, refusing to accept any responsibility for the disgraceful scenes outside the ground. They are supposed to be the sports governing body on the continent, total joke the way the final was organised, and it was countless real Liverpool fans that lost out so give over, I know people who still have scars and bruises after being battered outside the ground when they had proper tickets and had been to every European game this year

[Square Ball]

The entire report will be handed over to the sports minister Richard Caborn tomorrow by Platini, only then will anyone know the substance of it, or what "incidents" they are referring to.

[J70]

Context is important. I would suggest that Liverpool have played more games in Europe than any other British team, including two finals of the CL in the last three years. Surely that increases the likelihood of' incidents'. Lies, damned lies and stats

Let's see what the report says first. Does anyone know at this point what "25 incidents" actually means or what the distribution of "incidents" per game per club is?

[J70]

As we await the breakdown of the 25 incidents, here's an (obviously partisan) editorial from the Liverpool Echo on the matter...

Editorial:

RESIGN

Jun 4 2007 Liverpool Echo

Liverpool's fans today stand accused of being the worst behaved in all of Europe.

It is an accusation without basis in fact and is given life by the weasel words of a maverick Uefa executive with an agenda against English football.

William Gaillard is supposed to be a Uefa spokesman. His job is to articulate the policies and thoughts of his bosses at European football's governing body.

Is he doing this now or is he spouting personal opinion and slinging mud?

But ever since the organisation of the Champions League final proved to be the shambles which so many inside football feared and indeed predicted, this is exactly what Gaillard has done.

Today, Liverpool fans find themselves in the firing line simply because so many of them either witnessed or fell victim to the chaotic organisation of the Athens final.

Gaillard knows the truth and as such he is frantically creating smokescreens to mask Uefa's pathetic shortcomings and attempting to shift the blame.

There are, of course, those Liverpool supporters who brought nothing but shame on themselves, their club and their city in Athens.

All those who bunked into the stadium, knowingly used forged tickets or stole tickets from fellow fans are culpable for what went wrong that night.

Their actions are indefensible and the ECHO and Liverpool FC condemn those responsible.

But they were in the minority.

There was no mass outbreak of disorder and in total there were just seven arrests out of the estimated 40,000 Liverpool fans in Athens.

And those who did make it into the stadium deserve praise for the way they accepted defeat and the sporting manner in which they greeted AC Milan's victory.

Despite this, they are today having to fend off accusations that they are Europe's worst.

When you consider some of the outrageous and downright evil incidents committed by hooligans throughout Europe in recent years, you realise quite how ridiculous Gaillard's position really is.

# On February 2 a police officer was killed in Sicily when fans rioted during a derby match between Catania and Palermo.

# On November 24, 2006, a French police officer shot dead a Paris-Saint Germain football fan after being turned on by a mob during racist violence that followed the team's defeat by Israeli side Hapoel Tel-Aviv.

# On Saturday night a referee was attacked on the pitch during an international match between Sweden and Denmark. The game had to be abandoned.

# On September 15, 2004, Anders Frisk was forced to abandon the Champions League match between AS Roma and Dinamo Kiev after he was felled by a lighter thrown from the stands.

# On April 4 this year 12 Manchester United fans ended up in hospital after Italian Ultra hooligans ran riot around the Roma v United Champions League quarter final.

Do incidents like these not pose a far greater threat to the very fabric of the game than those fans who Gaillard claims stole banners from the Olympic Stadium in Athens?

Is Galliard suggesting that the snatching of tickets, although morally reprehensible and clearly criminal, is in anyway near the same league as riots resulting in death?

Tomorrow, Gaillard says Uefa will present a dossier to sports minister Richard Caborn which details 25 incidents of disorder over the last four years involving Liverpool fans.

Today Mr Caborn has told the ECHO he expects to give the report short shrift.

It is interesting that somebody chose to leak the story – bereft of any detail whatsoever – to the international news agency Reuters three days before it was due to be published.

Twenty-five incidents? What incidents? Give us the details and let us assess it against the excesses of Europe's real thugs – the ones Uefa continually fail to address.

Cynics could argue, with some justification, that Uefa was behind the leak at a time when it is under threat of legal action from furious fans, many with tasty bank balances and even tastier contacts, who failed to get into the Athens final, despite having tickets.

It could also be seen as a smokescreen while Uefa are under fire over the final arrangements.

Gaillard would have been wise to keep his opinions to himself until these allegations are made public. He leaves himself accused of self-serving spin and a flat-out agenda against English football.

No wonder many Liverpool fans – and a good deal of Everton supporters who flooded phone-ins yesterday in support of the Reds fans – are today suggesting Gaillard is merely trying to get Uefa off the hook.

We ask why Uefa isn't getting tough on the massive hooligan problem in Italy, or the sickening and overt displays of racism.

Uefa is an organisation which has failed to get its own house in order and yet its glorified press officer takes the moral high ground, instead of ordering a full inquiry into Athens.

In the absence of an inquiry we have the one-eyed findings of the Lord High Executioner himself, William Gaillard.

The man is out of control and out of excuses. This is the man who, pre-Athens, told the ECHO the stadium was "unsuitable" and after the shambles told the BBC it was "perfectly suitable".

Just two years ago, the Liverpool supporters won international acclaim for their exemplary behaviour in Istanbul when not a single Reds fan was arrested.

Four years before that, they won a special Uefa award for their outstanding behaviour during the Uefa Cup final in Dortmund.

Are we to believe that in the intervening years, they have gone from award winners to the being the worst behaved in all of Europe?

Disturbingly, there are those within the English game who believe Gaillard has an agenda against English clubs and that he will actually go out of his way to cause trouble for them.

Whatever his motives, it is clear that Gaillard is unfit for the office he currently occupies.

His slurs on Liverpool FC and its fans are a disgrace to both himself and Uefa and he should apologise and resign immediately.

It is the unwritten law of public relations that when a spokesman becomes the story it is time for him to go.

He should quit.

And if his once-lauded boss Michel Platini won't sack him, it means he supports him. So he should quit too.

[Hank Everlast]

That was such a stupid and dangerous statement to make... liverpool should have the lawyers on the case asap because that type of publicity will be broadcast all over the World.

[The Real SlimShady]

i see Stevie G has jumped to their defence...wise move Stevie, since you are in Estonia and your house is empty 

i wonder does Reina agree with UEFA?!

''dont take the bait lads''

bait me hole, its fact.

[Syd]

i see Stevie G has jumped to their defence...wise move Stevie, since you are in Estonia and your house is empty 

Will Missus G not be there with her bouncer friend  

[mooncatiii]

i see Stevie G has jumped to their defence...wise move Stevie, since you are in Estonia and your house is empty 

i wonder does Reina agree with UEFA?!

''dont take the bait lads''

bait me hole, its fact.

aye cos the people that broke into reinas house where liverpool supporters?!! that happened when liverpool playin chelsea so all liverpoool fans would have been watchin that.

its also fact that the same man praised liverpool fans on a few occasions callin them well behaved and its the same organisation presented them with the "best supporters in europe" award in 2001!  this is just uefa tryin to take the blame of themselves after Athens! 

id liek to see what these 25 incidents are, probably littering or smoking in a public place or somehtin stupid like that

[The Real SlimShady]

or trying to stove in a barmans skull with a paving slab.... oops, that was Istanbul!

[johnneycool]

i see Stevie G has jumped to their defence...wise move Stevie, since you are in Estonia and your house is empty 

Will Missus G not be there with her bouncer friend  

Ha Ha, beat me to the draw there Syd.

[full back]

I think a lot of people are missing the point here
The report is an independent one - Gaillard didnt do it - he is simply reporting what it says
It was carried out by people acting undercover & followed fans from around 2003

[Gabriel_Hurl]

or trying to stove in a barmans skull with a paving slab.... oops, that was Istanbul!

at least try and make the bait decent Slim - it was in Bulgaria that happened - not Istanbul

[magpie seanie]

Congrats to Liverpool on finally winning something this season.

[SammyG]

I think a lot of people are missing the point here
The report is an independent one - Gaillard didnt do it - he is simply reporting what it says
It was carried out by people acting undercover & followed fans from around 2003

And the report doesn't make any claims that Liverpool (or anybody else) are the worst supporters, that was a phrase made up by Galliard to cover his own arse and which he has since backtracked on. The report is simply a list of incidents, from various European matches and includes such hideous 'crimes' as urinating in public and even nicking the official UEFA flags, which Galliard has since admitted all teams do, not just Liverpool.