The safety plans of every organisation responsible for staging next year’s Champions League final at Wembley must be “tested to destruction”, Football Association chair Debbie Hewitt has said.
There is immense pressure on the FA and UEFA for the event to be a success after problems arose at the last two finals.
The 2022 match in Paris almost became a “mass fatality catastrophe” according to an independent report commissioned by UEFA. Liverpool fans found themselves penned against stadium perimeter fences ahead of the match against Real Madrid due to organisational failings, and were then tear-gassed by French police.
While the problems around this year’s final in Istanbul were less severe, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin admitted last week that “not everything was perfect”, with supporters reporting problems getting to and from the Ataturk Stadium and in accessing drinking water and toilets.
Ceferin assured delegates at the European Football Fans Congress in Manchester that the 2024 final would be “a unique experience” for supporters.
That appeared to ratchet up the pressure on Wembley, a venue which itself hosted a chaotic Euro 2020 final two summers ago.
An independent review by Baroness Casey identified more than 20 near-miss incidents that could have resulted in serious injury or death at the match between England and Italy on July 11 2021, as ticketless individuals stormed turnstiles to force entry.
FA chair Hewitt insisted there was “healthy paranoia” among organisers around what could go wrong at every Wembley event, and pledged everyone involved would aim to work out the pitfalls and how to respond to them.
“It isn’t the regular stuff that goes wrong,” Hewitt said.
“It is the stuff that hasn’t happened. In that particular tournament (Euro 2020), it was the first time we had 30,000 empty seats (due to Covid-19 capacity restrictions).
“It’s really easy for me standing here and saying ‘well, that was obvious, that was the thing that was different’. You have to search for the thing that is different. You don’t make the same mistakes, you make different ones. So what is the thing that is different?
“Secondly, it is about making sure every one of the stakeholders completely and utterly understands, and tests to destruction, the plan.
“It is no good the police doing their bit in one room and the stewards doing their bit in another and us doing our bit in that room and UEFA doing theirs in that room. It is getting everyone in the same room and testing each other’s plans to destruction.
“I believe in a process called pre-mortem, not post-mortem. I use it a lot in business, what could go wrong and how do we deal with it? It’s a bit like pretend crisis management in a way but it is much more deep than that.
“There is pressure on every event we host at Wembley. We have got paranoia, healthy paranoia I would say, but we are paranoid. Yes, there is pressure but there is pressure on everything we do.
“You write about (the pressure) because of the fact there have been two finals where things have gone wrong. But every time we host something at Wembley – (a) Tyson Fury (fight), Harry Styles, Coldplay, no matter what, where you have groups of people together, something that can go wrong will go wrong, and it is times so many multiples because it is the national stadium.
“We are paranoid about it and we try to test to destruction. I am sure we will make some mistakes that have yet to be made in other stadiums, but it won’t be because we didn’t try and test. That is important to us. It is very important we learn the lessons from Paris and Istanbul.”
Asked if she was confident there would be no repeat of the storming of the turnstiles at Euro 2020, Hewitt said: “You can never be confident with something like that can you? It would be very over-confident for me to say that. Because anything can happen.
“It is one of the biggest events in Europe and anything can happen. You just have to be confident you have thought through what you would do if something did happen. Rather than say ‘I am confident that will never happen’, the question is ‘what if it did? What would you do?’ That kind of testing is crucial.”
By the time Wembley hosts the Champions League final on June 1 next year, the FA will also know whether or not the stadium will host the Euro 2028 final.
The UK and Ireland is bidding to host that tournament in competition with Turkey, with a decision due to be taken by UEFA’s executive committee on October 10 this year.
Hewitt is expecting tough questions given the chaos of July 2021 and knows it is important to have the answers.
“We are on our feet in October convincing people why we should win,” she said.
“One of the things I am absolutely convinced UEFA’s Exco will ask us is ’how can you assure us nobody will storm the turnstiles?’.
“Being well rehearsed – and not just having the answers but having worked through what is the answer – that is an important part of the bid. We have to convince every one of those Exco members we have not only thought about it but that we have planned for it – that we know what we would do in what order and who is accountable, and that is why they should vote for us.”
Ranieri comes out of retirement to take charge of Roma
Claudio Ranieri has come out of retirement to take charge of Roma until the end of the season.
The Italian retired in May, calling time on a career in which he famously led Leicester City to a shock Premier League title in 2016 and coached a host of teams from Europe's top leagues, including Chelsea, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Inter and Monaco.
Ranieri, who last coached Cagliari in Serie A, returns for a third stint in charge of Roma, with whom he came agonisingly close to winning the Serie A title in his first spell between 2009 and 2011.
Across his previous two spells, the 73-year-old managed 96 games in all competitions, registering 53 wins, with a win percentage of 55.21%.
"Roma is pleased to announce that Claudio Ranieri is the new Technical Manager of the First Team," Roma said in a statement.
"At the end of the season he will take on a senior managerial role, he will be an advisor to the ownership for all sporting matters of the club.
"The search for a new coach will continue in the coming months and Claudio will also have a say in this decision."
Ranieri replaces Juric, who was sacked after Roma lost 3-2 at home against Bologna on Sunday, leaving them languishing in 12th place in the Serie A standings.
Juric, who won just four of his 12 games in charge of the club, was Roma's second coach to be fired this season, with Daniele De Rossi being sacked in September.
According to reports in Italian media, Roma found it difficult to sign a replacement for the Croatian before settling on Ranieri, with former Italy coach Roberto Mancini and Maurizio Sarri among the preferred candidates.
Ranieri's first game will be away to league leaders Napoli on November 24.
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
Taylor pleased with City's physical test during Hammarby win
Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor was pleased with how his team stood up to the physical challenge of Hammarby in their 2-0 Champions League victory on Tuesday.
City's win extended their unbeaten start to the season, having won every game in all competitions following a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on opening day.
“Difficult game for us, physical challenge, a physical team in Hammarby. I think they outnumber us a little bit in terms of size, considering when you look at our midfield. But I thought the girls handled it really well," Taylor said after the game
“I thought we dominated the game. In the early parts we were just a little bit off in our final action. We just needed to speed up a little bit in terms of being on the end of it, and we spoke about that at half-time, and we score with Laura getting into that type of position we’d been talking about.
“[The physicality was something] we were prepared for, but dealing with it is a different thing. Having Bunny [Khadija Shaw] and Alanna [Kennedy] on the pitch, two of our more physical players, is really important, particularly for set-plays.
“At 1-0 we were defending a couple of scenarios like that, Yama [Ayaka Yamashita] making a really good save at one point. Then Aoba [Fujino] got the goal that maybe allowed us to change things up a little bit more, get some people off that we’d like to manage.
“I think the girls have dealt with it really well tonight. We expected it, we thought it would be difficult, and they rose to the challenge.”
The victory leaves City top of their Champions League group with a 100% record after three matches, three points above second-placed Barcelona.
Taylor had made changes to City's starting XI, with Lauren Hemp among the trio to drop out from the weekend and she did not feature in the squad. Ahead of their weekend game against Chelsea, who are second in the WSL, Taylor explained the reasoning behind Hemp's absence.
“We’ve just got an issue with Lauren that we just need to analyse a little bit further, that’s all," he said.
“It’s something that potentially happened in the Palace game [on 3 November]. She was able to play in the Tottenham game [last Friday] but wasn’t able to tonight, so we’ll just take a little bit longer to assess and find out more.
“Hopefully [she can play against Chelsea]. There’s an opportunity there, we’ll just have to take a moment tomorrow, have a good conversation and find out where we’re at with the medical staff.”
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