UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin apologises to Liverpool fans

Speaking with Gary Neville in The Overlap (h/t The Athletic, subscription required), UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has issued an apology to Liverpool fans for what happened in the 2022 Champions League Final.

The incidents that took place before and after the horrifically organised final in Paris affected both Liverpool and Real Madrid fans. But, the Reds fans took the brunt of the police and local brutality there, and were then later blamed for the chaos created around the stadium on the night.

After the independent review of the situation, it was revealed that the Liverpool fans made no mistake. It was the organisers’ fault for such a dark situation for an event that deserves to spread happiness around the world.

UEFA has offered a refund to Liverpool fans once it was decided who is at fault. Here’s their President Ceferin with the apology (The Athletic):

“Trust me, there is not a single person in UEFA who is not terribly sorry, and the main topic of conversation is how to make sure that it does not happen again. Thank God, nothing terrible happened.

“It was hard to check what was right and what was wrong, we got some strange information. I really didn’t know the scale of the thing that was happening.”

Ceferin also accepted the mistake of UEFA wrongly blaming the ticketless Liverpool fans to cause the trouble.

These words won’t mean anything if things like that happen again. And this is not exclusive to Liverpool fans per se.

For an event as big as the Champions League Final, UEFA needs to take more responsibility for what is happening outside the stadium before the match. French authorities have to come out and be ashamed of their actions as well.

There were families of Liverpool players which got affected in that situation too. One can imagine how they would have played that final with their brains attached to something more important than the game.

As Liverpool fans, we must be glad that the truth has prevailed, even if it won’t rewind and rectify the dark times most people faced that night.

More Liverpool Fans:

• Mainz midfielder Anton Stach open to summer move with Liverpool linked
• Trent Alexander-Arnold sees the second leg against Real Madrid as a game with “nothing to lose”
• Outgoing Liverpool director Julian Ward in pole position to join Ajax Amsterdam

With the second leg of this season’s last-16 Champions League tie due tonight, the Reds could show some pride in the performance and make the away fans happy. Going through seems impossible given that we are three goals behind.