The committee’s 21 recommendations to improve safety and security at finals
1. UEFA should establish a process to ensure that the committee’s recommendations are implemented, including by other stakeholders. UEFA should publish an action plan on its website and regularly update on progress.
2. UEFA should always require all stakeholders responsible for organizing a Champions League final to follow the Council of Europe’s ‘Saint Denis Convention’ of 2016. It agreed an approach to supporters based on the ‘ safety, security and service’ rather than an approach based on preparing for disorder.
3. UEFA should ensure that its safety and security unit has oversight and primary responsibility for the safety, security and service of Champions League final operations.
4. UEFA’s safety and security unit should develop its capacity “to ensure that mobility and access arrangements are as safe as possible for supporters with any disabilities or special needs and that service to them is optimised”.
5. A host stadium’s security team should be more directly and fully involved in planning a match and conducting risk assessments.
6. Host stadiums must all have “well-managed security perimeters, reception services and crowd guidance and orientation”.
7. UEFA should have a formal requirement in the host bidding process that the police commit to the ‘commitment-focused’ approach to supporters agreed in the Saint Denis Convention.
8. The UEFA safety and security unit should work in advance with host police commanders, support access to relevant expertise and invite them to attend the quarter-finals and semi-finals, gaining experience from the clubs’ fans. If problems are identified in the design phase and cannot be resolved, they should be “escalated to government authorities”.
9. UEFA should move as quickly as possible to issue all-digital tickets and ensure that venues are fully capable of supporting this. Issuing both digital and paper tickets to the Paris final was a factor causing long delays and access issues.
10. UEFA should “optimize” its communications and messages to fans regarding match facilities, mobility, routing and access arrangements. “Above all it should integrate the involvement of supporters’ organizations and finalist club managers in its communication strategy, to effectively disseminate information and urgent messages.”
11. Finalist clubs should have their supporters’ liaison officers act as the main contact for supporters. This is already an obligation under UEFA’s club licensing regulations.
12. Football Supporters Europe and its affiliated supporters’ organizations “must be involved as substantial stakeholders throughout the planning process” and their representatives must act as “integral observers” at the final. They should also participate in the post-match analysis.
13. UEFA should require the host FA to deploy customer service managers at key parts of the transport network and throughout the final approach to the stadium, provide guidance to fans and also provide information to control rooms.
14. Medical and first aid personnel should be visible and accessible at all times, including at access points, gates and in the stadium area.
15. UEFA’s post-match analysis process should be “more analytically and objectively robust”. UEFA should include external “operational, academic and supporter-based expertise”.
16: The Council of Europe’s monitoring committee should review how compliance with the Saint Denis Convention can be better monitored and obligations “enforced more fully”.
17. The committee encourages the authorities in France to follow the recommendations of the Council of Europe and those of the French government official Michel Cadot, to improve the management and supervision of major sporting events in the ministries.
18. The French Ministries of the Interior and Sports should establish their own review of the policing model at sporting events. This should involve representatives of supporters, experts and academics. Police authorities should guarantee that they will operate a ‘supporter engagement’ model and that police, tear gas and pepper spray will only ever be used, proportionately, only where deemed necessary due to risk to life.
19. The French authorities should review the policy relating to the retention of CCTV footage and other material for the purposes of investigations which may improve security and public safety. UEFA should treat this as a demand from the hosts.
20. Host parties concerned should “undertake strict scrutiny” to ensure that their arrangements comply with the Saint Denis Convention. UEFA’s safety and security unit should be involved to ensure compliance is achieved during the planning process.
21. UEFA and the Council of Europe’s monitoring committee should carefully consider their ability to apply some of the above recommendations to UEFA-administered competitions other than the Champions League final, to avoid the development of similar risks . David Conn