UEFA are classless fools

By: Brian | June 5th, 2007

Hear that… listen close… it’s the wheels of UEFA’s spin team desperately trying to divert attention from the incompetency of their organization by blaming fans. Yes, fans, you know their customers, the ones that cause them to exist. Let’s take a look at what could possibly be the worse piece of spin that I have ever read and for those of you who are looking to make a career at a think tank or PR firm, here’s a great example of what not to do.

First, present the report before you start making announcements about it. Where is this report? Sounds like Platini and Gaillard are trying to tell a fish tale before even going on a fishing trip. Let’s see what these 25 offences are before making a huge ‘it’s not our fault’ campaign. Wait a second, now Gaillard is saying that these incidents are mostly, in fact, ’small’. So, what are we talking about here? Jaywalking? Pick-pocketing? Policemen getting killed? (Well, not much difference if it’s in Italy.)

Then you make ludicrous statements like ‘Liverpool fans stole from children.’ Now that’s some class. Come on guys, you can do better than that. What about ‘Hitler was a Liverpool fan’? That’s always a good one. Or my favorite: ‘Liverpool fans are descendants of Satan himself’. Rubbish. Sad, stupid, greedy men who care more about their egos than confronting the truth and trying to fix the problems of their organization. Well, then again, if they did that, they’d probably be out of jobs or maybe even in jail.

For UEFA to blame Liverpool fans, especially how they did so by having it sound like the whole fan base was guilty, is disgraceful and irresponsible. They are the ones who implemented an archaic ticket system that would make a four-year-olds’ ballet recital look like a tour of Fort Knox. They are the ones that held the final in a stadium that had the security measure capabilities of a slum in Sao Paolo. They are the ones that limited the amount of seats in said stadium to begin with which cut down on the amount of tickets available. And finally, they are the ones that severely limited the amount of already limited tickets to the supporters of the teams so they could give blowjobs to Heineken executives.

Every club has their bad seeds (see Ultras, Headhunters, etc…), but to try to put off the blame on a whole fan base is ridiculous. To me it’s as if they are trying to not only cover up their inability to organize and provide a safe and secure environment to watch a football match, but there’s more to this story than just that. They are a corrupt institution more concerned with politics than sport, and don’t have an ounce of credibility to stand by. And people wonder why an organization like the G-14 exists.



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Comments  

  • James |  June 5th, 2007 at 8:37 am

    cornercorner

    What makes me so pissed off about the whole thing is that UEFA’s site selection and ticket allocation policies are still not sufficiently different than what happened in Heysel more than 20 years ago.

    You can’t have MAJOR events in small cities/stadiums that have chronic match security issues and sit back and hope a major club with a rabid following doesn’t show up. That is not a security policy.

    Further (and most importantly) they should not under allocate to the club and over allocate to various local and generally disinterested parties - especially corporate allocations. If you got a ticket because you were a referee in a local Athenian league would you turn down 3 or 4 thousand euros from a scouser looking to get in desperately. this opens the door for fakes and other shenanigans.

    This is the exact same mix of ineptitude that led to what happened at Heysel. They had a Juve section and a Liverpool section and the a “neutral” section that was filled with Liverpool support that had bought the tickets from the locals. they were in an admittedly worse stadium, since demolished, and police presence was both insufficiently trained to deal with a big match (imagine the Jacksonville police if Liverpool/juve came to town) and allegedly far under staffed. Police around the world study that game film as an example of what not to do. Clearly violent and aggressively drunk fans were in the end the actors and therefore the guilty parties but no one is stupid enough to claim that authorities can’t shape events and do a great deal toward eliminating the influence of the malevolent.

    So here we are in 2007 and almost the same scenario took place except Liverpool as a club, a city and a fan base has done a lot of work to make itself a better place and a better group of supporters. The plethora of photos of the scousers and the milanese speaks to that - the milan fans as far as i know are big admirers.

    UEFA are buffoons and to blame Liverpool as an institution and a city would be laughable if it weren’t so cruel. Look at all the racist abuse that goes on in Italy and Southern and Eastern Europe on the whole. Surely they are worse fans but only outnumbered and not put to the test in the same way.

    Posted from United States United States

    cornercorner
  • samantha |  June 5th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    cornercorner

    what i am sayin that i am a huge footie and mager liverpool fan and thay are just takein the p*** out of us. are thay tryin to call us ascedend prone or somthin? liverpool are doin very well and are goin to do better next season. it is not are falt it all happnin when we are around!

    but we are the best ever!!!!

    luv
    sam
    xxxx

    Posted from United Kingdom United Kingdom

    cornercorner
  • Fred |  June 5th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

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    Now the best part of the spin…. Trying to take it back. Which is of course exactly what Platini is now trying to do.

    Posted from United States United States

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  • Teg |  June 10th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    cornercorner

    Hi. Found the following on the Daily Telegraph blogsite, headed “UEFA VERSUS THE SCALLIES”. Enjoy.

    So… UEFA has suggested that Liverpool has the worst supporters in Europe. How could they? They’ll be saying next that the Scallies aren’t charming scamps but threatening criminals.

    Good Lord, they might even suggest that the horrific nightmare of Hillsborough was not primarily caused by a flawed policing decision in the face of a near-riot, but by the blind stupidity of a mob (many ticketless) trying to force its way into a stadium which was self evidently already packed. “Justice for the 96” read the banners. Might anyone in UEFA be bold enough to suggest that Liverpool fans should look to their own number to find the culprits?

    Or don’t they realise that it has become politically incorrect to even hint at a criticism of Liverpool and its scally culture?

    Posted from United Kingdom United Kingdom

    cornercorner

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