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Stabbing At Old Wounds

By on Monday, June 6, 2022

After Hillsborough, Authorities Blamed the Victims. Now It’s Happening Again

As my Twitter feed before the Champions League Final filled up with horrific stories from Liverpool supporters who were trying to get into the stadium, my thoughts immediately turned to the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium tragedy, which killed 97 LFC supporters in a stadium crush. Although I had seen nothing to indicate that the same scale of tragedy was likely in Paris, multiple reports indicated that the situation was volatile and dangerous. And I kept thinking that, regardless of whether anyone in Paris suffers serious physical injury, many of the Liverpool fans who survived Hillsborough were likely to be triggered by what was happening now. For them, what was supposed to be a joyful, exciting day cheering on Liverpool in a European Cup final would instead be a terrifying, panic-inducing nightmare. And that nightmare could easily have lasting effects on many.

Worse yet, even after the fans made it into the stadium and later safely returned to their homes in Liverpool and elsewhere, many of those fans are likely still being triggered by the authorities’ ongoing statements about what happened in Paris.

In 1989, media and government authorities blamed Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium tragedy.  Ever since, both the Hillsborough survivors and the entire Liverpool fanbase have fought fiercely against that stigma. For the most part, Liverpool supporters have won that long, nasty fight. But the horror of both the Hillsborough disaster itself, along with decades of slanderous victim-blaming, have traumatized many within Liverpool’s fanbase.

Now, in the wake of Saturday’s fiasco outside the Champions League Final in Paris, officials of the French government and UEFA are triggering memories of past trauma by blaming the victims once again.

Why I’m Writing This

First, let me be clear: this post is not about the football match, which Real Madrid won, fair and square. Real’s manager had a great plan, the players executed the plan, and their goalkeeper was fantastic. In my opinion, on balance, Real Madrid were the better team. This post does not reflect sour grapes. I would be writing about what happened outside the stadium regardless of the outcome of the football match.

Second, I also want to note that I have aimed this post at my quite specific audience. Only a handful of people are likely to read this. They are almost all American. Some are Liverpool fans, but some are not. Many of them are new to European football generally, and/or new to the specific history of Liverpool Football Club. Some of my readers probably don’t even know generally about the events of last Saturday, because American media gave the event limited attention.  I understand that, by contrast, most Liverpool fans, even in the United States, already know both about what happened in Paris, and also know most or all of the history I’m about to go over here.

I’m writing because I want to provide some historical context that will demonstrate the devastating emotional impact that last Saturday’s stadium chaos is likely to have caused many Liverpool fans. As an American fan who has only followed Liverpool since 2011, none of the history I’m about to describe is part of my own lived experience. But I’m very aware that this history is deeply woven into the cultural identity of Liverpool’s fanbase — especially its core local fanbase.

What Happened Last Saturday in Paris?

On Saturday, May 28 Liverpool and Real Madrid played in the Champions League Final at the Stade de France Stadium in Paris. Conditions outside the stadium before the match were chaotic, violent, and dangerous. Liverpool fans arriving to the match — mostly by subway trains — encountered huge difficulties as they approached the stadium from the train station. The highly aggressive police response to an anxious but peaceful crowd proved to be the worst aspect of an overall miserable experience for fans — all before they even made it into the stadium.

Some Real Madrid fans also encountered difficulties, but their side of the stadium was, for whatever reason, far less congested.

The governing body organizing the match was the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Because thousands of (mostly) Liverpool fans were stuck outside the stadium, UEFA officials twice delayed the start of the match. Most of the fans outside had been there waiting for several hours. Ultimately, about 2,700 Liverpool fans who had legitimate tickets never made it into the stadium at all, and this included the family of Liverpool player Joël Matip.

Why all of this happened is still unclear. We do know that the logistical plans of UEFA and French government authorities were failures. However, both UEFA and the French government have pointed the finger of blame toward Liverpool fans, despite lacking any evidence to support their claims.

Inside the stadium, UEFA announced the initial delay by blaming Liverpool fans for arriving late (photo from The Anfield Wrap):

But there is no evidence that, as a group, Liverpool fans arrived late to the stadium. They could not get into the stadium because, in the three hours before the scheduled kickoff, stadium officials closed several of the gates where Liverpool fans were supposed to enter, for reasons that remain unclear.

French officials have claimed that 70 percent (or about 40,000) of the tickets presented by Liverpool fans were fake. By contrast, The New York Times says that official documents show that stewards intercepted 2,589 fake tickets at the event. Immediately after the match, Liverpool player Andy Robertson told the press that he had given an official, club-provided ticket to a friend, but stadium stewards had rejected his friend’s ticket and claimed that it was fake. At least one French newspaper has ridiculed the French government minister who has claimed that the problems were the result of 40,000 fake tickets:

This week, LFC podcast and website The Anfield Wrap has also done a fantastic job of both reporting what actually happened and calling out the lies of UEFA and the French government.

French Police Responded With Unwarranted Aggression Against the Anxious Crowd

While thousands of Liverpool supporters waited to get inside, French police employed aggressive crowd control tactics against them. The police sprayed hundreds in the crowd with tear gas. They used pepper spray against hundreds of others. Police used these tactics against both elderly people and families with small children.

In the eight days since these events occurred, very little evidence has come to light indicating that Liverpool fans in the crowd were unruly. I have seen no evidence of crowd violence. Although there is video showing that some young people in the crowd climbed over fences to get into the stadium, multiple eyewitness accounts by both fans and journalists indicate that those young men were not Liverpool supporters. but were French locals. There are dozens of cell phone videos showing police employing tear gas and pepper spray, but I have seen NO videos showing a Liverpool fan fighting with the police, with stadium officials, with Real Madrid fans, or with anyone else.

The Sky Sports news footage embedded in the tweet below shows several examples of unwarranted use of both pepper spray and tear gas by the French police.

Many neutral journalists were also caught up in the chaos outside the stadium before the match, and they have reported the incident in the same way that most Liverpool fans have described it. For example, Gary Lineker is a former star player for Barcelona, and the long-time host of BBC’s Match of the Day program, which shows highlights and analyzes action from all of the English Premier League matches each week. Fifteen minutes before the originally-scheduled start time for the match, Lineker tweeted:

Similarly, former Liverpool FC CEO Peter Moore attended the match as a fan. He tweeted:

Likewise, British Member of Parliament Ian Byrne tweeted:

Ronan Evain, a French football “fan activist” and the executive director of Football Supporters Europe, attended the match as an official observer as part of a UEFA observation program. Evain says that the policing approach at the stadium dehumanized Liverpool fans, who were “not welcomed as guests but treated as interlopers. Dangerous by nature, they had to understand who was in charge.”

Evain credits the “remarkable calmness” of Liverpool fans for preventing the fiasco from becoming a tragedy. “It is them, and them only, who prevented the situation from turning into a catastrophe. Their collective response to the inhuman treatment they received will remain one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen around a football game.”

After the game, chaos continued to reign. As they left the stadium and headed for the train, many supporters from both clubs were mugged and feared for their lives from attacks from local criminals. Now, when they were most needed, the police were nowhere to be found.

Days Later, the French Government Continued to Scapegoat Liverpool Supporters

On Wednesday, June 1, the French Senate conducted a hearing in which the government officials in charge of the Champions League Final reported about the event. At the Senate hearing, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin doubled down on his allegation that 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans attempted to enter the stadium with fake tickets. Darmanin said there had been “massive ticket fraud on an industrial scale.”

But far worse, Darmanin claimed that “it is clear — all the security services notes say so — that the people of Liverpool pose public order problems.” Similarly, French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra told the Senate that Liverpool fans presented the event’s organizers with “very specific risks.” Two days before the hearing, in a radio interview, Oudéa-Castéra had chastised Liverpool Football Club for letting its fans “out in the wild.”

The Wikipedia entry for “2022 UEFA Champions League Final Chaos” says “supporters, journalists, and political figures were quick to dispute the initial story of fan disorder, with videos and eyewitness testimony demonstrably proving otherwise. Collectively, they accused the organisers and security of major disorganisation and unpreparedness, as well as of smearing supporters using outdated stereotypes.”

UEFA has opened an independent investigation into the fiasco.

Meanwhile, the authorities’ accusations against Liverpool fans continue to harm many members of a fanbase that have already been traumatized by stadium disasters and blame-shifting.

What is the origin of the “outdated stereotypes” adopted by French government officials?

Let’s dig into the history.

Liverpool in the 1980s — Poverty and Social Discontent

Liverpudlian musician and journalist Thomas Gorton writes that “Liverpool in the 1980s was a city terrorized by recession and the brutality of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. By 1985, unemployment was double the national average and opportunity scarce in the proud port city with a rich cultural history.”

Similarly, writer Ronnie Hughes describes that “Liverpool in the 1980s felt like the front line of a war zone, a class war where a working class city stood up to a manifestly unfair and provocative Conservative government and fought for its survival.”

During this bleak period of recession and social upheaval, following Liverpool Football Club offered escape and joy. LFCHistory.net calls 1973 to 1985 the “Golden Years” of Liverpool FC. From 1980 to 1990, LFC won the league title in England seven times. Liverpool also won the European Cup (now known as the Champions League) in 1977, 1978, 1981, and 1984.

Football Hooliganism Escalated Across England

Throughout the 1980s, thousands of Liverpool fans would follow their team in its travels across England and Europe. In European football, unlike most American sports, home teams set aside an entire section of the stadium specifically for away fans to attend the event. This heightens the atmosphere at stadiums, but it also invites conflict among fans of opposing teams — before, during, and after the match. These days, such conflicts almost always remain verbal, if not civil.

But in the 1980s, attending football matches was far different from today’s sanitized, corporate-controlled stadium environment.

Then, a small but significant minority of “fans” attending matches were more intent on getting into a physical scrap than they were on watching football. These were England’s notorious “hooligans.” Many of you may know the old British maxim that “football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.”

Lexico defines a “hooligan” as a “violent troublemaker, typically one of a gang.”

British football fans became known worldwide for hooliganism as early as the 1960s, but as economic pressures and class wars in Great Britain intensified in the 1980s, so too did violence at football matches. And, of course, mob psychology meant that hooligan behavior often spread from the devoted criminals to fans who, under ordinary circumstances, would never consider such violence.

Thirty-seven years before the recent events in Paris, violent mob behavior led to tragedy at another European Cup Final that involved Liverpool.

Violence by Liverpool Hooligans Led to 39 Deaths in the 1985 Heysel Stadium Tragedy

On May 29, 1985, the European Cup Final featuring Liverpool against Italian club Juventus was held at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.

About an hour before kickoff, inside the stadium a group of drunken Liverpool supporters repeatedly charged a flimsy fence that separated them from a section of Juventus supporters. At the time, most sections of European football stadiums did not have seats. Instead, each section was a “terrace,” where the fans stood throughout the match, with only a bar to separate the rows.

The absence of seats at Heysel helped the large group of Liverpool fans build momentum with a running start toward the adjacent section of Juventus fans. The fence collapsed, and the Liverpool fans pressed on, intending to beat the shit out of their Italian counterparts. The Juventus fans retreated in a panic.

Unfortunately, in 1985 the aging, decrepit Heysel Stadium was literally crumbling. When the Juventus fans ran away from their Liverpudlian attackers, they ran toward a concrete wall. Some of those fans were crushed by other fans. Then the crumbling wall collapsed, trapping and killing additional people.

Thirty-eight people died that day before the match ever started. Six hundred more were injured, and a 39th victim died weeks later.

Shockingly, UEFA decided that the match would proceed anyway. Juventus won 1-0, defeating a Liverpool squad that had won the European Cup in 1977, 1978, 1981, and just a year earlier in 1984.

After the event, 25 Liverpool fans were identified based on careful review of video evidence. Police arrested them in Liverpool and surrounding areas, and they were extradited to Belgium for trial. As Gareth Roberts wrote for The Anfield Wrap, “The youngest of the number was 18, the oldest 29. Their jobs ranged from painter, rail guard and labourer, to miner, electrician, carpenter and greengrocer’s assistant.”

Fourteen of the extradited fans were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter after a five month trial. The head of the Brussels police force in charge at the event, along with the head of the Belgian football association, were also convicted of “regrettable negligence” with respect to the organization and security at the stadium. Those officials received six-month suspended sentences. Seven of the Liverpool fans were sentenced to three-year prison terms, and seven received three-year suspended sentences.

Two days after the event UEFA announced that English clubs were banned from all European competition indefinitely. UEFA upheld that ban for five years. Fans of other English teams that would have otherwise been eligible to compete in Europe from 1985 to 1990 thus felt that they had been victimized by Liverpool and its fans. This tribalistic sentiment lingers among certain opposition fans, who to this day sometimes sing about Liverpool as “murderers.”

Without doubt, Liverpool fans earned a black reputation that day in Belgium. Four years later, they would again be involved in another stadium disaster. This time, Liverpool fans did nothing wrong. But they shouldered the blame anyway.

The 1989 Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: Trauma Twice Over

On April 15, 1989, Liverpool was scheduled to play Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semifinal match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.

As occurred in Paris little more than a week ago, at Hillsborough anxious crowds waited for hours to enter the stadium. Also as in Paris, police, football association officials, and stadium authorities lacked an adequate plan to deal with the crowds.

Unlike Paris, the Hillsborough crowd control problem ended in disaster.

To thin out the crowd, the South Yorkshire Police chose to open a gate that led only to two enclosed “pens,” or terraced sections of the stadium. As the crowd pushed forward into those unseated terraces, people at the front were pushed into a strong chain link fence, which effectively prevented any release of the pressure coming from the incoming push of fans. The people entering the stadium were unaware of the problems at the fence. Many in the crowd were crushed and suffocated. Ninety-four people died that day; another died days later, and one in 1993. The 97th victim died in 2021, after living for 32 years with irreversible brain damage from Hillsborough.

The survivors from that Hillsborough incident included the people who went to the match but also came home. They included the family, friends, and loved ones of the dead. They included the manager and players, and everyone else at the football club. And they included the Liverpool fanbase writ large.

Of course, those survivors were all traumatized by the events at the Stadium and the loss of their loved ones. Under normal circumstances, they could have grieved and recovered from that trauma as well as survivors can ever recover from such loss. But in addition to grieving those losses, in the aftermath of Hillsborough the survivors also had to deal with a second trauma, which has gone on for decades — the trauma of being wrongfully blamed for the tragedy that killed their loved ones.

As Wikipedia describes, “In the following days and weeks, South Yorkshire Police (SYP) fed the press false stories suggesting that hooliganism and drunkenness by Liverpool supporters had caused the disaster. Blaming Liverpool fans persisted even after the Taylor Report of 1990, which found that the main cause was a failure of crowd control by SYP.”

Spurred in part by the shadow of the Heysel disaster, together with the false police reports and a general cultural obsession with hooliganism, media outlets enthusiastically embraced and embellished the narrative that Liverpool fans were at fault. Some newspapers invented stories that surviving fans had robbed the dead bodies, and all of the media reported that the crush occurred because of widespread drunkenness. News stories concluded that Liverpool fans were “drunk and violent and their actions were vile”, that fans assaulted police and rescue workers at the scene, including “urinating on brave cops.”

None of this was true. But it has taken decades of relentless work by the survivors to bring the truth to light.

The initial official investigation took place in 1990, led by Lord Justice Taylor.  Taylor issued a report that concluded that “the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.” That report also concluded that most fans were not drunk, or even affected by alcohol.

As we have seen happen recently in Paris, the South Yorkshire Police also blamed fans for trying to enter the stadium without tickets, or with forged tickets. The Taylor Report also rejected that allegation.

Meanwhile the initial inquests by the South Yorkshire coroner reached the controversial conclusion in 1991 that the victims suffered “accidental death,” which effectively insulated the police and stadium officials from prosecution.

Despite the findings of the Taylor Report, widespread public opinion regarding Hillsborough across much of England would continue to blame Liverpool fans for decades to come. Fans attending Liverpool matches continue to this day to endure songs from opposing fans about Hillsborough, including refernces to Liverpool fans as “murderers,” and chants indicating that “the [newspaper] Sun was right.”

In 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel Finally Laid the Lies to Rest (for Most People)

After 20 years of pressure from the Hillsborough Family Support Group, in 2009 the British government formed the Hillsborough Independent Panel to review documents from the police and other authorities that had never been made public, to investigate the disaster and its aftermath, and to issue a report. The Panel had nine members, and was chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool. Its members included a human rights lawyer, an investigative journalist, a medical officer in the Department of Health, a former Deputy Chief Constable, a criminologist, a broadcaster, and a former executive of the National Archives.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel worked for three years. In September 2012, the Panel issued a 389-page report with findings. Most importantly, the Panel concluded that no Liverpool fans were responsible in any way for the disaster, and that the main cause was lack of police crowd control. The Panel also found that the South Yorkshire Police had altered 164 witness statements, and that certain Members of Parliament had helped the police spread lies through the media.

After the Panel’s report, Prime Minister David Cameron apologized publicly in Parliament for the Government’s role in the cover-up. By December 2012, a court quashed the results of the 1991 inquest, and a second coroner’s inquest was opened  In April 2016, a jury in those second inquests returned a verdict that all 96 of the deaths were the result of “unlawful killing.” However, subsequent efforts to prosecute the police and other officials have generally resulted in acquittals or dismissals.

The Hillsborough Experience Is Deeply Entrenched As Part of Liverpool Fan Culture

One cannot be a serious fan of Liverpool Football Club without understanding and appreciating the tragedy and struggle for justice around Hillsborough.

Since 1989, Liverpool Football Club and its supporters have deeply committed to providing “Justice for the 97.”

The club hosted a memorial service at Anfield every year on the anniversary of the tragedy, and thousands of Liverpool fans attended each year to show support for the families and the cause. At the request of the families, the final memorial service took place in April 2020.

Since 1992, the Liverpool team kit (uniform) has featured two Hillsborough justice flames flanking the number 96 — and more recently 97, with the recent death of 97th victim Andrew Devine.

Anfield features a permanent memorial to the 97 victims. Liverpool fans, along with opposing fans and teams, regularly honor the memories of the dead at the memorial with flowers or other tokens of remembrance.

The Hillsborough Family Support Group, the football club, and its supporters have worked incredibly hard for more than 30 years to memorialize and set straight the story of the events of April 15, 1989. That memory has indelibly imprinted on the culture of the club.

And, because the memory of the Hillsborough tragedy is so strongly imprinted on LFC, the recent fiasco in Paris — and especially the efforts of UEFA and the French government to blame Liverpool fans for that chaos — open deep wounds. The combination of stadium crowd control issues and authorities pointing the finger of blame has almost certainly triggered traumatic responses for Hillsborough survivors — including not only the loved ones of the deceased themselves, but the fanbase writ large, who have grieved and fought for justice alongside those families for years.

In the week since the Paris Final, Liverpool Football Club has done its part to protect the fans. The club has publicly demanded apologies from the French Interior Minister and Sports Minister for their slurs against LFC supporters. LFC’s CEO Billy Hogan also demanded that UEFA start an independent investigation (which UEFA has now done).

Perhaps most importantly, Liverpool FC have worked with mental health organizations in and around Liverpool to provide professional support to those fans who were triggered or otherwise harmed by the events in Paris and the subsequent response by authorities.  The club appears to be doing what it can to ensure that its fans do not walk alone.

Others are not. UEFA has now offered a wishy-washy apology for what happened in Paris. Critically, however, that apology fails to express responsibility or regret for UEFA’s initial announcement of the reason for the delay — the supposed “late arrival of fans.”

Shame on UEFA.

Shame on French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

Shame on French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.

Shame, Shame, Shame.

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