For the second year in succession, the Champions League final was overshadowed by pre-match chaos as thousands of football fans endured an ordeal in trying to access the stadium.
Following on from the heavy-handed treatment suffered by Liverpool supporters outside the Stade de France in 2022 (Daily Mail), their Manchester City counterparts were also subjected to logistical nightmares and overcrowding as they tried to get to the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul last Saturday.
It’s led to justified widespread criticism of UEFA, not just from fans of the clubs involved but also within the media.
Sam Matterface, Scott Minto and Alex Crook reflected on the organisational shambles of the game in Turkey on talkSPORT’s Gameday Podcast, with the latter sharing anecdotes which illustrated the trouble that people encountered in getting to the venue.
He spoke of how he and his broadcasting colleagues were ordered to abandon their taxi as the driver insisted they couldn’t negotiate the bottlenecks of traffic which had built up, and he also saw fans of Man City and Inter Milan ‘hanging from windows on the metro’ because it was over capacity.
Crook fumed: “Once again, UEFA have made a massive blunder. The stadium is fantastic but it’s too far away from the city centre.
“Shuttle buses that were supposed to turn up to take fans back to their accommodation or to the airport didn’t turn up. That left thousands of people wondering how to get home. Many had to pay extortionate fees in taxis.
“They’ve got to sort it out, UEFA. Pick a stadium that has the infrastructure to host a game of this magnitude, because at the moment they are failing fans time and time again.”
Matterface also slammed the ‘abysmal treatment‘ of fans in Istanbul, describing it as ‘ludicrous‘ and ‘totally ridiculous‘ and calling on European football’s governing body to ‘get your act in order now‘ before a fatal disaster occurs at showpiece fixtures.
Minto added: “What happened last year in Paris – [UEFA] absolutely got away with it.”
After what happened outside the Stade de France a year ago, Liverpool fans who were at that game will resonate with the commentators’ condemnation of UEFA and the difficulties endured by supporters in Turkey at the weekend.
Aleksander Čeferin and co simply need to be held accountable for why they continue to select venues which are clearly incapable of staging such major finals and learn from the mistakes of Paris and Istanbul, as their continued failure to do so could potentially lead to a fatal situation occurring.
You can view the talkSPORT pundits’ comments on the Champions League final chaos below (from 13:25), via talkSPORT on YouTube: