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'Liverpool fans are the worst in Europe'


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Special news flash for Bibblies;

 

 

LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - Liverpool supporters have been identified as the worst behaved at European matches in a report to be handed by UEFA to the British Government in Brussels on Tuesday.

 

The report, which has been compiled by undercover police agents from a neutral European force over the last four years, will be given by UEFA president Michel Platini to British sports minister Richard Caborn.

 

UEFA spokesman William Gaillard told Reuters: 'The incidents involving Liverpool fans have been well known to us before the trouble at the Champions League final which involved Liverpool fans last week.

 

'That was just the latest example. What other set of fans steal tickets from their fellow supporters or out of the hands of children? We know what happened in Athens, and Liverpool fans were the cause of most of the trouble there.

 

'There have been 25 incidents involving Liverpool fans away from home since 2003 and these are in the report -- most teams' supporters do not cause any trouble at all.'

 

Problems occurred at the Champions League final when fans with forged tickets and even without any ticket gained entry to the Olympic Stadium for the match against AC Milan, while dozens of fans with genuine tickets were refused entry.

 

When Liverpool fans did try to gain entry the situation threatened to escalate out of control and the Greek police fired tear gas and used batons.

 

 

Liverpool have submitted their own report to UEFA which criticises the security arrangements for the final.

 

 

Gaillard added: 'You must ask yourself why at the same match, with the same conditions, there was no trouble with the Milan fans - only the Liverpool fans.'

 

 

Liverpool fans were held responsible for the disaster at the 1985 European Cup final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels when 39 mainly Italian fans died after a wall collapsed following a charge by Liverpool fans before the match against Juventus.

 

The tragedy led to English clubs being banned from European competition for five years.

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So let's look back and see what we have had this past season?

 

Inter Milan fans firing over 50 flares onto a pitch is not a problem?

 

Italian police and Roma fans trying to kill ManU fans?

 

Italian policemen being killed?

 

And what the feck have we done? LFC should sue this prick for the crap he has spouted.

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Liverpool are to hold a press conference demanding the immediate resignation of Gaillard :cussing::cussing:

 

 

 

Jun 4 2007

Voice of the ECHO

 

LIVERPOOL'S fans today stand accused of being the worst behaved in all of Europe.

 

It is an accusation without basis in fact and is given life by the weasel words of a maverick Uefa executive with an agenda against English football.

 

William Gaillard is supposed to be a Uefa spokesman. His job is to articulate the policies and thoughts of his bosses at European football's governing body.

 

Is he doing this now or is he spouting personal opinion and slinging mud?

 

But ever since the organisation of the Champions League final proved to be the shambles which so many inside football feared and indeed predicted, this is exactly what Gaillard has done.

 

Today, Liverpool fans find themselves in the firing line simply because so many of them either witnessed or fell victim to the chaotic organisation of the Athens final.

 

Gaillard knows the truth and as such he is frantically creating smokescreens to mask Uefa's pathetic shortcomings and attempting to shift the blame.

 

There are, of course, those Liverpool supporters who brought nothing but shame on themselves, their club and their city in Athens.

 

All those who bunked into the stadium, knowingly used forged tickets or stole tickets from fellow fans are culpable for what went wrong that night.

 

Their actions are indefensible and the ECHO and Liverpool FC condemn those responsible.

 

But they were in the minority.

 

There was no mass outbreak of disorder and in total there were just seven arrests out of the estimated 40,000 Liverpool fans in Athens.

 

And those who did make it into the stadium deserve praise for the way they accepted defeat and the sporting manner in which they greeted AC Milan's victory.

 

Despite this, they are today having to fend off accusations that they are Europe's worst.

 

When you consider some of the outrageous and downright evil incidents committed by hooligans throughout Europe in recent years, you realise quite how ridiculous Gaillard's position really is.

 

On February 2 a police officer was killed in Sicily when fans rioted during a derby match between Catania and Palermo.

 

On November 24, 2006, a French police officer shot dead a Paris-Saint Germain football fan after being turned on by a mob during racist violence that followed the team's defeat by Israeli side Hapoel Tel-Aviv.

 

On Saturday night a referee was attacked on the pitch during an international match between Sweden and Denmark. The game had to be abandoned.

 

On September 15, 2004, Anders Frisk was forced to abandon the Champions League match between AS Roma and Dinamo Kiev after he was felled by a lighter thrown from the stands.

 

On April 4 this year 12 Manchester United fans ended up in hospital after Italian Ultra hooligans ran riot around the Roma v United Champions League quarter final.

 

Do incidents like these not pose a far greater threat to the very fabric of the game than those fans who Gaillard claims stole banners from the Olympic Stadium in Athens?

 

Is Galliard suggesting that the snatching of tickets, although morally reprehensible and clearly criminal, is in anyway near the same league as riots resulting in death?

 

Tomorrow, Gaillard says Uefa will present a dossier to sports minister Richard Caborn which details 25 incidents of disorder over the last four years involving Liverpool fans.

 

Today Mr Caborn has told the ECHO he expects to give the report short shrift.

 

It is interesting that somebody chose to leak the story â?? bereft of any detail whatsoever â?? to the international news agency Reuters three days before it was due to be published.

 

Twenty-five incidents? What incidents? Give us the details and let us assess it against the excesses of Europeâ??s real thugs â?? the ones Uefa continually fail to address.

 

Cynics could argue, with some justification, that Uefa was behind the leak at a time when it is under threat of legal action from furious fans, many with tasty bank balances and even tastier contacts, who failed to get into the Athens final, despite having tickets.

 

It could also be seen as a smokescreen while Uefa are under fire over the final arrangements.

 

Gaillard would have been wise to keep his opinions to himself until these allegations are made public. He leaves himself accused of self-serving spin and a flat-out agenda against English football.

 

No wonder many Liverpool fans â?? and a good deal of Everton supporters who flooded phone-ins yesterday in support of the Reds fans â?? are today suggesting Gaillard is merely trying to get Uefa off the hook.

 

We ask why Uefa isnâ??t getting tough on the massive hooligan problem in Italy, or the sickening and overt displays of racism.

 

Uefa is an organisation which has failed to get its own house in order and yet its glorified press officer takes the moral high ground, instead of ordering a full inquiry into Athens.

 

In the absence of an inquiry we have the one-eyed findings of the Lord High Executioner himself, William Gaillard.

 

The man is out of control and out of excuses. This is the man who, pre-Athens, told the ECHO the stadium was â??unsuitableâ? and after the shambles told the BBC it was â??perfectly suitableâ?Â.

 

Just two years ago, the Liverpool supporters won international acclaim for their exemplary behaviour in Istanbul when not a single Reds fan was arrested.

 

Four years before that, they won a special Uefa award for their outstanding behaviour during the Uefa Cup final in Dortmund.

 

Are we to believe that in the intervening years, they have gone from award winners to the being the worst behaved in all of Europe?

 

Disturbingly, there are those within the English game who believe Gaillard has an agenda against English clubs and that he will actually go out of his way to cause trouble for them.

 

Whatever his motives, it is clear that Galliard is unfit for the office he currently occupies.

 

His slurs on Liverpool FC and its fans are a disgrace to both himself and Uefa and he should apologise and resign immediately.

 

It is the unwritten law of public relations that when a spokesman becomes the story it is time for him to go.

 

He should quit.

 

And if his once-lauded boss Michel Platini wonâ??t sack him, it means he supports him. So he should quit too.

 

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - UEFA should stop "playing the blame game" and take responsibility themselves, Minister for Sport Richard Caborn said as he waited to receive a report on trouble involving Liverpool fans.

 

UEFA president Michel Platini will submit a report to Caborn which names Liverpool as Europe's most troublesome club based on statistics compiled from international police undercover agents for the past four years.

 

Problems occurred at the May 23 Champions League final in Athens when fans with forged tickets or no ticket gained entry to the Olympic Stadium for the match against AC Milan, while dozens of fans with genuine tickets were refused entry.

 

When Liverpool fans tried to enter, the situation threatened to escalate out of control and Greek police fired tear gas and used batons.

 

"There have been over 25 incidents involving Liverpool supporters since 2003, some of them small, some more worrisome," UEFA spokesman William Gaillard told Reuters on Monday.

 

Caborn told Reuters: "This is not about UEFA versus Liverpool or UEFA versus England fans but UEFA must stop playing the blame game and stop pointing fingers at people.

 

"What we need to do is look at the evidence of the last season and the evidence in the report which I'm due to get tomorrow and move forward.

 

"This is about finding solutions, not looking back and saying what has happened but more about how to stop this happening in the future.

 

"I have given this message to (Liverpool chief executive) Rick Parry this morning in a phone call and I will be giving the very same message to Michel Platini when I see him tomorrow."

 

Parry, in a statement on Liverpool's Web site (www.liverpoolfc.tv) responded to Gaillard's comments by saying: "The shortcomings in the management of the situation in Athens were apparent to anyone who was there.

 

"These latest comments from UEFA should not deflect attention from that reality. What is most surprising about (them) is that on the eve of the final, Mr Gaillard quite rightly commented that Liverpool supporters 'have a tradition of good behaviour'."

 

Parry added: "These same supporters, who Mr Gaillard is claiming are now the worst in Europe, were praised by UEFA President Michel Platini after our semi-final victory against Chelsea only last month, commended for their behaviour in Istanbul in 2005 and actually honoured by UEFA at a gala dinner in Monte Carlo in 2001 as joint Supporters of the Year with Alves after the UEFA Cup final.

 

"We produced a report for UEFA a week beforehand predicting, sadly, all of the things that did go wrong," he said.

 

"We told UEFA our intelligence suggested there were 5,000 forged tickets in existence. They knew and we knew that thousands of fans would travel without tickets and we stressed the need for a proper check at the outer cordon."

 

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