UEFA have astonishingly declined to comment on the logistical chaos at last weekend’s Champions League final, despite a litany of shortcomings presented to it by Mail Sport after interviews with Manchester City fans.
Their lack of engagement comes despite last year’s near-fatal crushes at the same final at the Stade de France and assurances that lessons had been learned from the organisational breakdown witnessed at Paris 2022, which was almost a ‘mass fatality catastrophe’ for which UEFA was ‘primarily responsible’, according to the independent report commissioned by UEFA.
Mail Sport has collated statements from Manchester City fans to build a picture of further shocking disorganisation and unacceptable conditions in Istanbul, sending UEFA a detailed breakdown of the failings as well as a series of questions on Thursday. The confederation sent a brief email informing us that they would be declining to comment on Friday afternoon.
As such there is still no word from UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin on the plight of fans, even though they arguably saved his job when they campaigned against their own clubs’ support of the breakaway Super League in 2020, after which Ceferin lauded their efforts and said they would play a greater role in the future UEFA.
Nor from UEFA events head, Martin Kallen, who kept his job to organise this year’s final even after the independent report commissioned by UEFA into the Paris debacle noted that he had given ‘objectively untrue’ evidence to the French Senate, the French equivalent of the House of Commons, and that it was ‘particularly unimpressed with his evidence’ and concluded that he marginalised UEFA’s Safety and Security Unit in planning for Paris.
There has been no word on last weekend’s chaos at the Champions League final in Istanbul from UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin (centre)
UEFA events head Martin Kallen (pictured) has also not commented on the scenes in Istanbul
Mail Sport’s own reporting of the near-disaster in Paris was commended by that report and cited as key evidence.
UEFA insisted they would be implementing the 21 recommendations for this year’s final and did consult closely with fans, making the breakdown of logistics even more remarkable.
City fans, who had paid between €70 to €690 for tickets, and some of whom were elderly, had to endure queues of two hours or more just to get on to the shuttle buses to reach the ground and had water confiscated before embarking on three-hour journeys in overcrowded, unventilated buses with no toilet facilities. Disabled fans on the buses say they were unsuitable for wheelchairs.
All City fans spoken to were under the impression that UEFA’s recommended method of transport to the ground was the shuttle buses rather than the Metro — though UEFA have shown the MoS the message they say was circulated, which suggested the Metro as a choice. Mis-communication of transport details at last year’s final was cited as a key reason for the near tragedy.
The majority of City’s 20,000 fans took buses and endured up to three-hour journeys to cover the 13 miles to the ground, sometimes with drivers who got lost, with some fans forced to stand for up to five hours in the heat of the afternoon before reaching the Ataturk Stadium.
With water confiscated, many were left dehydrated and exhausted and some chose to disembark from the buses and walk along a motorway to reach the ground in time, with some male fans forced to urinate in plastic bottles, an option unavailable to female fans.
One user reported a bus driver opening the door to improve air circulation in a traffic jam but being unable to shut it again and so driving the rest of the journey with the door open.
On reaching the stadium, most supporters were initially directed to another fan park adjacent to the stadium, where queues for the toilets were more than an hour long and consisted of RV camper vans, which would periodically drive off, on one occasion with a fan still inside.
Inside the stadium itself there were insufficient toilets and concession stalls, with queues of more than an hour and reports of profiteering from unofficial sellers but also at official kiosks.
Fans were made to queue for hours to get into the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul
This all comes just a year on from Liverpool fans being made to queue for hours which almost led to a ‘mass fatality catastrophe’ in Paris at the 2022 Champions League final
Though some water was available for €1 for a 250ml bottle, many fans were only offered the same bottles for €10, seemingly from unofficial sellers.
At the end of the game, according to City Xtra report, one of the official concession stalls was selling small cups of water for 260 Turkish Lira (£8.50) — though these were cash-only transactions, the official sellers suddenly refusing to take contactless, which would have left a digital trace of the transaction.
The same report cites a fan being charged 800 TL (£26) for a Pepsi. A confrontation with fans ensued when a vendor refused to change this for another transaction.
There was chaos on the return to central Istanbul, with fans again forced to queue for an hour to get on to buses, which then sat in the car park, some for two hours.
There was little direction or organisation, meaning fans were queuing in the wrong areas for half an hour before being told to queue elsewhere. The coach park where the fans boarded the buses was on rubbly, unsmooth ground and so was unsuitable for wheelchair users.
City fans say that they were told the Metro would close at midnight so they would have to take shuttle buses — but it actually ran until 1.30am and the fans that abandoned the shuttle bus queues and took the Metro had smooth journeys back.
Fans say that at no stage were any UEFA or local officials present to advise visiting fans on travel options, a key criticism of last year’s final and which UEFA had vowed to address.
Ant Astley, 30, a software engineer, said: ‘It was a complete shambles from start to finish. The travel to the stadium was an utter joke. We were told to all get the shuttle buses and avoid the Metro.
‘The queue for a bus took a good one-and-a-half hours by 4pm [kick-off was 10pm local time]. And easily two hours by 5pm. Water (was) being taken off people before boarding the bus. The approximate time from central fan zone to the stadium was meant to be an hour, but was two-and-a-half to three hours, depending on the route your driver decided to take.’
Queues hardly moved for hours, while fans have also spoken about having water taken off them before getting on the bus for a three-hour trip to the stadium
A lack of toilets or water on the buses made it a ‘horrific experience’ for supporters
Peter Campbell, 39, from Stockport, said: ‘The queue to the shuttle bus was awful: red hot, no water stops, then that bottle-necked from being a crowd of 10-20 people wide to going through a little gate where it was eventually controlled by barriers. We were on the bus for two and half hours minimum.
‘When we got to the [stadium] fan park, I wouldn’t even call it organised chaos. No beer, very limited toilets, I wouldn’t have liked to have been a female trying to go to the toilet. [In the stadium], there were two toilet blocks between block 328 and 331 with about 10 urinals between them. Food kiosk was a joke. Some guy tried charging me €10 for a water, when it was €1 in the fan park.
‘Getting out was the worst. The car park was gridlocked. Waiting for the buses, there were no barriers, just biggest and more aggressive got on.’
Campbell and a friend abandoned the queue and paid €120 for a taxi back to the city centre.
Felix Badent, 20, from Mosbach, Germany, said: ‘The shuttle buses were massively overcrowded. I got one after almost an hour [but] before you had to get through a security check, where they confiscated your water or other drinks.
‘Luckily I got a seat, but the buses were way too full and the Turkish police tried to fit in as many as possible. They said the drive will take one hour. The traffic was horrible and there was no air-con or open windows. After around two hours, lots of lads got off the bus in the middle of nowhere to pee or just to get some fresh air. A lot of them just walked on the highway to the stadium.
‘After a two-and-a-half-hour journey, we finally arrived at the Ataturk Stadium. Inside the stadium, I wanted to buy water, but the queue was so huge that I decided to leave and bought my water from a suspicious Turkish man inside the stadium for €5 per 250ml.
‘After the game, against UEFA advice, I luckily decided to take the Metro back and that took around 45 minutes. UEFA had said that public transport would be for free to everyone with a final ticket but the Turkish authorities said I have to buy a Metro ticket and they didn’t know anything about a free ride.’
Dan Edwards, 23, social media executive from the Isle of Man, said: ‘We checked out the fan park and shuttle bus stop at Yenikapi [in Istanbul city centre] during the morning and could see it was not going to work.
‘So we got the Metro from Taksim. UEFA had said to specifically not use the Metro [UEFA deny this] but we could tell the shuttles wouldn’t work. We got on the Metro at about 4pm and it was so easy and quiet. We went to the fan park at the stadium. The toilets were horrible and very small, they were built into an RV and queues were huge.
‘When we got into the ground there were two concession stands and the queues were massive. We joined one and queued for an hour and 15 minutes.
‘When we got to the front they said that they didn’t accept contactless despite the signs saying they did and we didn’t have the physical card so we couldn’t even buy anything.
‘I heard from one mate who was on a bus that was so hot and stuffy with no windows open so someone opened the door while they were in traffic on the motorway.
‘The driver couldn’t figure out how to close the door so they did the rest of the journey down the motorway with the door open. The lack of communication and help from UEFA and local police was shambolic and contributed to a poor experience of what should’ve been an amazing night.’
The chaos was even greater after the match. Andrew Henderson, 19, from Manchester, waited two hours for a shuttle bus to depart and said: ‘The journey home was disastrous.
‘Shuttle buses back to Yenikapi were seemingly non-existent. For about an hour we searched the car park and couldn’t find one. Stewards and officials we spoke to had no idea what we were talking about. We fortunately managed to find the final Yenikapi shuttle and had to physically cram on. We then didn’t move for a solid two hours as we were gridlocked.’
Dan Edwards added: ‘After the game it was even more chaotic than before. We walked the 500 metres back to the City fan zone.
Fans have revealed how there were hardly any shuttle buses to take them away from the stadium after the match
‘When we got there it was chaos, taxis and shuttle buses pointing in all different directions; some were full and some empty. Most of the buses were going to the airports and some to Yenikapi.
‘We had also been told at this point that the Metro was closed after midnight. There was no one there from City or UEFA to help. ‘We walked away from the ground through the fan park for about a mile, which was chaos with buses and people walking for as far as we could see.
‘None of the traffic was moving and it was obvious it wouldn’t be moving for hours. After we’d walked for about a mile we turned around and went back to the Metro.
‘UEFA communications said the Metro closed at midnight and it was now about 1.30am but we chanced it. When we got to the Metro, it was dead quiet and so simple, they were running express trains that didn’t stop and got us back to near Taksim [central Istanbul] very quickly.’
