I used to think the calls for social media companies to do more were a little hopeless, as how do you check what hundreds of millions of people are saying all at once? Then Youtube took down a video I took myself at a Premier League game for it being copyright material within two minutes of me uploading it. Surely whatever they did to scan a video and realise it was a premier league football match is a lot more complicated than a similar program that searches for abuse and hateful content.
GrinWithoutaKat wrote:I used to think the calls for social media companies to do more were a little hopeless, as how do you check what hundreds of millions of people are saying all at once? Then Youtube took down a video I took myself at a Premier League game for it being copyright material within two minutes of me uploading it. Surely whatever they did to scan a video and realise it was a premier league football match is a lot more complicated than a similar program that searches for abuse and hateful content.
Yeah but a company could possibly lose money in your example!
GrinWithoutaKat wrote:I used to think the calls for social media companies to do more were a little hopeless, as how do you check what hundreds of millions of people are saying all at once? Then Youtube took down a video I took myself at a Premier League game for it being copyright material within two minutes of me uploading it. Surely whatever they did to scan a video and realise it was a premier league football match is a lot more complicated than a similar program that searches for abuse and hateful content.
It's not though. It's relatively simple for an algorithm to recognise music and video.
Even then people get around it, mirroring video for instance.
It'd be very very easy for social media to add a swear filter that would take out racial slurs. But it's impossible to stop people working around it.
For example:
strawberry float Fuk F uck F.uck F,uck F.u.c.k. Fuc'k Fuuck Fuuuck Fuuckk F u c k F . u . c . k
I've just seen the messages that Portsmouth's under 18s were sending.
strawberry floating hell.
strawberry floating hell. I though that kind of bollocks died out in the 70s/early 80s but these are kids.
It's unbelievable that youngsters would be involved.
It's not particularly shocking when a 50 year old twat says it. But under 18s? I can understand there being one little banana split, but it's a whole group chat, they obviously had no fear that anybody in that group would be against their vile bullshit.
We're quite accepting of the concept that teenagers can be radicalised though aren't we? While young people have typically more progressive values than their parents or grandparents there are going to be plenty of young fascists viewing campaigns for greater equality and justice as campaigns against their own future.
It's not helped that most attempts to educate young people about racism are met with consistent hostility from the mainstream right.
I do also wonder if it actually is less of an issue with 18-50 year olds or whether people of typical working age just have the sense to not be as overt with their racism for the sake of their careers.
I've just seen the messages that Portsmouth's under 18s were sending.
strawberry floating hell.
strawberry floating hell. I though that kind of bollocks died out in the 70s/early 80s but these are kids.
It's unbelievable that youngsters would be involved.
It's not particularly shocking when a 50 year old twat says it. But under 18s? I can understand there being one little banana split, but it's a whole group chat, they obviously had no fear that anybody in that group would be against their vile bullshit.
We're quite accepting of the concept that teenagers can be radicalised though aren't we? While young people have typically more progressive values than their parents or grandparents there are going to be plenty of young fascists viewing campaigns for greater equality and justice as campaigns against their own future.
It's not helped that most attempts to educate young people about racism are met with consistent hostility from the mainstream right.
I do also wonder if it actually is less of an issue with 18-50 year olds or whether people of typical working age just have the sense to not be as overt with their racism for the sake of their careers.
Of course teenagers can be radicalised.
What's unbelievable is a group of kids at a football club academy have these views. Football is pretty good (I'm not counting the fans!) at having diverse playing squads. These kids are not isolated from interacting with people of different races, they will be in teams with other Black kids, be training with them etc etc. And yet these utter dickheads are comfortable enough with racism to send messages like that on a group chat.
I can understand one or two wankers saying horrible things. But the fact they are doing it on a group chat makes me think the problem is far more than a couple of idiots.
I've just seen the messages that Portsmouth's under 18s were sending.
strawberry floating hell.
strawberry floating hell. I though that kind of bollocks died out in the 70s/early 80s but these are kids.
It's unbelievable that youngsters would be involved.
It's not particularly shocking when a 50 year old twat says it. But under 18s? I can understand there being one little banana split, but it's a whole group chat, they obviously had no fear that anybody in that group would be against their vile bullshit.
We're quite accepting of the concept that teenagers can be radicalised though aren't we? While young people have typically more progressive values than their parents or grandparents there are going to be plenty of young fascists viewing campaigns for greater equality and justice as campaigns against their own future.
It's not helped that most attempts to educate young people about racism are met with consistent hostility from the mainstream right.
I do also wonder if it actually is less of an issue with 18-50 year olds or whether people of typical working age just have the sense to not be as overt with their racism for the sake of their careers.
Of course teenagers can be radicalised.
What's unbelievable is a group of kids at a football club academy have these views. Football is pretty good (I'm not counting the fans!) at having diverse playing squads. These kids are not isolated from interacting with people of different races, they will be in teams with other Black kids, be training with them etc etc. And yet these utter dickheads are comfortable enough with racism to send messages like that on a group chat.
I can understand one or two wankers saying horrible things. But the fact they are doing it on a group chat makes me think the problem is far more than a couple of idiots.
I was gonna say that it might still only be a small number of the players but I've counted seven names on the screenshot I saw on Twitter earlier so that's out of the water. Six if you don't count the one who seems to have taken the screenshot and intentionally leaked it to a colleague.
For the third time this week I'm gonna throw accusations of "human trash" out into the world. These players should know better, and as harsh as it sounds I hope the next few years of their careers are very difficult, to show them the consequences of their actions. What black player would want to play with someone who holds those views? And why should they be made to do so?
Anyone else see the photos of some of the alleged hooligans released by the police this morning? They look like right inbreds. The type of people that would look into a mirror and be dumbfounded at their reflections.
Would you mind copying and pasting it as it's under paywall and sounds like a wild read.
Wembley under siege: how England fans stormed the Euro 2020 final
Families recount horror of being trapped among ‘lawlessness’ amid claims that stadium staff took bribes to let people in
It was meant to be a night of celebration, the match of a lifetime for many of those attending. Instead, thousands of ticketless fans, many fuelled by drugs and alcohol, were able to storm Wembley stadium, fighting with ticket holders and forcing young families to fear for their safety and leave their seats.
The Football Association has publicly acknowledged a single breach of security where “a small number of people” got into the stadium but a Times investigation reveals just how widespread the security breaches were, with exit doors and disabled entrances broken down on at least six separate occasions.
Many more made it in by tailgating through the turnstiles behind ticketholders, with Uefa sources believing as many as 5,000 ticketless fans got inside.
Police have arrested two people who were working at Wembley. Allegations have surfaced of stadium staff being bribed with thousands of pounds by intruders and celebrating with those who got in.
The Times understands that the two men, both 18 and from east London, were arrested on suspicion of stealing items such as tabards and wristbands used to gain access to the stadium. The teenagers have been released under investigation.
This is what went wrong on a dark night for English football.
Coming home? Wednesday July 7, 10.36pm. England 2 Denmark 1.
The referee’s full-time whistle brings the semi-final to a close and confirms England’s place in their first big tournament final for 55 years. For thousands of England fans only one thing matters now: making sure they are inside Wembley stadium for Sunday’s match — with or without a ticket.
Some of the stewards at Wembley are allegedly already plotting their own money-making venture, according to fans at the Denmark game. One fan, Chris Tucker, says that “at the Denmark game, stewards were telling us they’d let us in for the final for £1,500 each”.
On social media, fans begin exchanging tips on circumventing security to get into the ground. They know that if they can make it in illicitly — known as jibbing — there will be thousands of empty seats because Covid restrictions mean capacity has been capped at 75 per cent. Several hundred join a group on the confidential messaging app Telegram called “The Wembley Jib”, where plans are made for groups to rush barriers and checkpoints manned by stewards.
On Twitter, supporters discuss how they made it into the ground for previous matches, including the game against Denmark. One user, Gazspurs46, writes: “Scouted it last night, get up the stairs before they start checking tickets, 10 minutes in there are no stewards on the door at the back of the stadium, even asked a couple if they’d take 200 cash to get in and said yes, easily doable.” In the days ahead there are dozens of posts discussing plans to jib into Wembley.
Match day dawns Sunday, July 11. The party starts early in London, with fans queuing for pubs from 5am. By mid-morning there are raucous scenes outside mainline stations as tens of thousands travel into the city to soak up the atmosphere. Crowds are drinking cans of beer and singing loudly. King’s Cross station is forced to close shortly before 1pm after flares are let off around the station.
Among those travelling to London is Reece, an 18-year-old from Manchester. He has already sold a ticket for the final for £3,000, far above its face value, but has decided to see if he can get into the stadium without paying for another. He spends the train journey from Manchester in a lavatory to avoid paying the fare.
There are signs by early afternoon that heavy drinking and drug use are taking a toll. On the Wembley-bound Jubilee line at Bond Street a man urinates in the carriage to loud cheers from his mates. As he relieves himself, other members of his group, men in their twenties, share out a quantity of cocaine, trying to snort the powder off £20 notes as the carriage shakes its way along.
The scene greeting fans as they come out of Wembley Park Tube station is “like a warzone”, according to one fan. “Something out of a zombie apocalypse,” another says.
By early afternoon, Wembley Way is packed with tens of thousands of people — many of whom don’t have tickets for the game. Flares are lit by fans clambering on buses and rooftops and renditions of Southgate you’re the one and Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home) fill the air. Almost everyone is drinking. Men start to throw beer cans around. By mid-afternoon, they’re throwing glass bottles and traffic cones. The atmosphere is becoming more sinister.
Ned Mackay, 47, arrives at Wembley Way at 6.30: “It was a dystopian reality of broken glass, filth everywhere, fans out of control, kids jumping up and down on rooftops, chanting, out of their minds on drugs and alcohol. It was an air of lack of control and intimidation.”
James Robinson, an Arsenal fan, is shocked that nothing seems to be being done to stop it. “I don’t feel like there was enough police at all,” he says. “There were glass bottles hitting the wall above, cans and bollards coming over. It didn’t feel safe at all. I feel like at an event like that it should have been better policed. I’m an Arsenal fan and whenever we play Tottenham, everywhere you see there are police. If I was an Italian I’d have been extremely scared.”
There are no checks to ensure that those on Wembley Way have tickets. The first barriers are a Covid checkpoint at the far end of the road from the Underground station.
Most big football games have a police-enforced “ring of steel” around the stadium and several rounds of checks to keep non-ticket holders well away. Wembley’s new geography makes this difficult.
The Football Association owns the stadium but not the land beyond its immediate footprint. In recent years extensive development has turned the area into an entertainment destination with a retail park, bars and several new-build apartment towers. Stewards can’t easily be deployed to ensure that only ticket holders get close to the stadium. Instead, Wembley Way fills with at least twice as many people as would be able to gain legitimate access. Police appear to be surprised by the numbers who have gathered. At 4.12pm the Met issues an urgent update pleading with fans not to travel to Wembley if they don’t have tickets.
Three hours before kick-off, the stadium opens. The first checks for fans are at the base of the main steps at the far end of Wembley Way from the nearest Tube station — very close to the stadium. Ticket holders are required to prove they have been vaccinated against Covid or have had a recent negative test before stewards activate their tickets. They can then climb the steps and join the queues for the turnstiles at their designated stadium entrance gate. Crowds quickly build around Covid checkpoints as ticket holders and those trying to force their way in jostle with one another.
Justin Clarke, 45, an accountant from Leatherhead in Surrey, and his wife are attending the final with his son Aaron, 9, and Clarke’s 75-year-old father. They arrive at around 5pm to soak up some of the pre-match atmosphere but are confronted with turbulent scenes. “The overcrowding, it was crazy,” Clarke says. “You were just walking on a sea of cans and bottles. We thought: ‘Maybe this wasn’t the best idea’, but we were halfway there so [we] pushed on.
“People were standing around with crates and trolleys of beer and there were lads sitting up on the roof of the Boxpark. Clearly someone had thrown something from there and the response [from the crowd below] was to start throwing things back.
“There were glass bottles hitting the wall above, cans and bollards coming over. We just had to cover our lad as best we could and just get through.
“It was just lawlessness. There were no police in sight.”
Soon after the stadium opened, problems began at the outer Covid checkpoints, manned by stewards paid £8.90 an hour. At 5.15pm a concerted push by a large group allows people without tickets to force their way through one checkpoint. They push aside the fences used to filter ticket holders into queues. At least 20 people make it through despite the efforts of stewards and a small number of police officers trying to hold them back. One steward is trampled in the scramble.
At about 5.30pm David Evans, 54, arrives at Wembley Park with his wife and two children. He paid more than £3,000 for four category one tickets. Standing outside the Tube, he surveys the scene on Wembley Way. “It looks like a festival of football, it’s great,” he thinks. “Flares going off, people shouting, people hollering.”
But as Evans and his family head towards the stadium they realise “actually this isn’t as great as I thought”. Broken beer bottles litter the ground and some fans are throwing empty beer cans at one another. Fireworks are set off in the crowd. By the time he reaches the Covid checkpoint, “the atmosphere is getting a little more heated because there’s so many people without tickets around the barrier”.
“There’s ticketless fans everywhere,” he says, and fears a crush. “I had people next to me, people saying ‘we’re going to storm it, we did it every other game, we’re going to storm the barrier’.”
A few minutes later, at 5.40pm, another effort to break through security measures is successful, with fans pushing over larger barriers covered in the blue Euro 2020 logo near the base of the stadium. A few hundred people, mainly young men, are seen running up a staircase leading to the outer concourse.
In the minutes that follow, more barriers are pushed over in two incidents on both sides of the main steps to the stadium. Hundreds rush through. With each breach, more and more people have made it to the immediate perimeter of Wembley without having tickets for the match or having their Covid status checked. Others have bypassed the first checks by using images of tickets circulating on social media which they have altered to add their own details. Hoping to jib their way into the stadium, they join queues for the turnstiles or roam the outer concourse looking for an opening.
Ticketless fans are now roaming the outer concourse, trying to get into the stadium itself. At gate N, on the far side from Wembley Park station, fans with tickets are offered money to allow someone to “sneak in behind” as they go through the unmanned turnstiles.
One fan, Tucker, says he saw “bundles of cash being handed over” to stewards dressed in orange high-vis jackets to let people in without tickets. Younger stewards dressed in yellow jackets stood idly by as this happened, he says.
“You saw people with legitimate tickets getting in through the turnstiles and then bung a steward some money to open the disabled gates for their mates without tickets. I told another steward there were people inside without tickets and he just shrugged his shoulders.”
Charlie Perry, a 25-year-old roofer from Surrey who achieved notoriety earlier in the day by placing a lit flare between his buttocks in Leicester Square, is among those who get in by tailgating another fan. He has made it past Covid checks by paying £150 to a steward and then giving £100 to a ticketholder to let him squeeze in the turnstile behind them.
Another supporter who makes it in without a ticket, Finlay, spends the hours before the game hidden in a toilet inside the stadium to avoid being thrown out. He blames high ticket prices and capacity restrictions for forcing people like him to break in. “UEFA priced the common man out of it giving tickets to their mates and people like Tom Cruise [rather] than proper supporters,” the teenager says. “The fault lies with Uefa and anyone else responsible for the ticketing system and not making the match full capacity.”
One man has scanned his barcode but before he can move through the turnstile, someone has pushed in front of him and stolen his place. He is left outside with a ticket that is no longer valid.
Paul Robinson, 60, arrives at the disabled entrance in his wheelchair just after 6pm and is met with a large crowd of people who are “obviously not disabled”.
Elsewhere, problems are building for fans with tickets. Many have not had their tickets validated because Covid checks are overrun with ticketless fans pushing their way through. One fan spends almost an hour looking for a steward to validate his ticket before being able to enter through the turnstile at Gate A.
“There were loads of fans in front of me without tickets,” he says. “A guy had his kid on his shoulder who didn’t have a ticket. They were getting through the turnstile but then being ejected out of the disabled gate right next to it. One group of fans came out and said ‘Right. Let’s try the next one’.”
5.49pm
From inside the stadium, the Clarke family can see ticketless people making repeated attempts to enter, with stewards chasing them off but not removing them from the outer concourses — so they are free to try again at another gate.
“We were going up the escalators having got in and looked down to see someone that had come in after a disabled fan and they had to take him out again,” Clarke says. “There were plenty of warning signs of problems to come later in the evening. It was such a flagship event but there was just no real [security] presence.”
A little later, Evans and his family are queueing for the turnstiles at gate G. A 50-something woman asks if she can follow him in because she doesn’t have a ticket. She disappears when he swears at her but others are trying their luck. In the scrum outside the turnstiles, some fans are injured. A 12-year-old boy is hurt in a stampede at one door. Patched up by a paramedic, he is well enough to attend the game but during the mêlée his father has lost his phone — and with it, their tickets.
6.33pm
On the other side of the stadium, close to the Bobby Moore statue, fans are targeting another disabled entrance. At 6.33pm, dozens of ticketless fans try to ram their way through the turnstiles behind legitimate ticket holders. Some are offering to “slip a tenner in your pocket,” others offering up to £50, while many are just trying to push in.
Stewards apprehend one woman who has made her way through and drag her to the disabled entrance to eject her. In doing so they open up another route of entry for the ticketless fans outside — the first major breach of the stadium.
By 6.35pm the crowds on Wembley Way are so big that stewards at the base of the main steps leading to the stadium have given up asking for proof of vaccine or Covid test status and, afraid of a crush, are waving people through. There are no longer any obstacles to ticketless fans reaching the stadium itself and around the ground huge numbers are trying to force their way inside.
Video obtained by The Times shows the large exit doors being forced open and hundreds of people — men, women and children — streaming in, whooping and shouting. Stewards are overwhelmed and it is almost a full minute before they are able to close the doors again. “They were trampling over stewards, charging through the concourse area and weren’t bothered who they barged into. Me and my friend were terrified but managed to hide behind a pillar to protect ourselves,” one fan says. The chaos and violence are now inside the stadium for the first time.
Those who make it in run into seats close to where the players’ relatives and a number of other high-profile figures have seats. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and his wife are seated in block 102, close to gate G. Most of the players’ families are in the same section. So too are several current and former footballers and managers and several England women’s players.
At 6.54pm, fans force their way in through a disabled entrance at gate C. A handful of stewards try to hold them back but are overwhelmed. Inside, other England fans take exception to the incursion, booing and shouting “f*** off you c***s” and “pay your f***ing money”. Ticket holders begin fighting those coming in. Video images, which quickly go viral, shows a man in a patterned shirt swinging punches while others kick fans on the ground. The inner door from the disabled entrance is open for around a minute before staff manage to close it. Some of those attacked by other fans are thrown out by stewards to angry shouts of “do your job”.
By now well over 1,000 fans have made it into the stadium without tickets. They include Reece, who travelled down from Manchester in the train lavatory earlier that day. Shortly before 7pm he posts a photo from inside a stadium concourse on to his Twitter account.
The sheer number of people who made it inside the stadium without tickets has led to suspicions that stewards were complicit in opening disabled entrances or exit doors to allow people in — either their friends, or those who had bribed them to do so.
James Robinson, an Arsenal fan, has a ticket at Gate J but has arranged to meet his friends for a beer in another section. He is waiting inside the ground when shortly before 7pm he sees a steward lift the latch to a door. It swings open and some 200-300 people storm in.
“It was shocking,” he says. “There were quite a few men holding children as they ran through the gates. I saw the same guy do up the same latch to lock the doors again after about two minutes.”
There is little apparent effort by stewards to identify and evict those who have made it in illicitly.
When eventually Robinson gets to his seats, he finds two young lads already occupying them.
Nicola Peters, 50, sees a group of 80 to 100 young men who have rushed through an open door fill the empty seats in her block. She too suspects that stadium staff were complicit.
“There were so many of them it was unbelievable,” she recalls. “A steward came up, went to the back where they’d all gone [and] started fist-bumping and high-fiving [with 15 or so people from the group]. They were obviously mates.”
One of the group has an image of a ticket on his phone and the others then take it in turns to photograph this on their own mobiles so they have something to show staff — but “once these guys were in situ nobody came to check”, Peters says. They remain for the entire game.
“The family next to me, she had two kids aged eight and six, and they just left [before half time]. It felt overcrowded. If anything happened you’re not getting out because all the ways to get out were just rammed full of people.”
6.54pm
After the doors are breached, stewards lock the turnstiles at Gate H and shut the barrier to stop any ticketed fans entering. Fans outside are forced to wait for 45 minutes, with no idea what is going on or when they will be let in, if at all.
Phil Lawton is waiting outside with his friend, Chris Withey. “It was a bit wild on Wembley Way so at 6pm we started making our way up,” he says now. “We were in the queue for about an hour to go up the steps.”
“We were queuing for the turnstiles [and] then suddenly saw a door pop open and [we] saw 200 to 300 people rush through. I’m sure it was a steward who opened the door. I saw someone with a badge and a high vis on the other side when the door flung open.
“After we came out of the we ran towards our turnstiles. We were about ten people from the front when the stewards locked the turnstiles and shut the barrier behind it.
“In front of me was an Italian guy and his son was trapped in between the turnstile and door locked behind . . . the kid was trying to kick it to get out. His dad was going crazy and kept shouting ‘my son, my son . . . he’s trapped, he’s in prison, he’s in prison’.
“We finally got to our seats at 7.50. There were people looking at gaps, trying to nick seats.”
Ned Mackay, also waiting outside Gate H, asks a police officer why there is a delay: “He said there weren’t enough stewards on the gate. Our queue was getting very restless, people started hitting the side of the stadium, urinating on the side of the queue because they didn’t want to lose their place.”
When Mackay and his friends finally find their seats, there are already people occupying them. “They weren’t confrontational, they shuffled along the row but it was clear they didn’t have tickets. They made some excuse about their mobile phone running out of power.”
Ticketless fans pack the gangways, blocking entrance and exit points. “If there’d been a need to evacuate or anything serious to get out of the stadium it would have been an absolute disaster,” Mackay says. “I didn’t see one empty seat in my section or anywhere nearby despite authorities claiming the capacity was down to 65,000.
“As far as I could tell, the lower and upper tier — the main tiers — were completely packed.”
Dave Strauss, 56, is forced to wait 45 minutes outside Gate H. And despite paying hundreds of pounds for his ticket, he eventually makes it all the way to his seat without showing either his Covid certificate or his match ticket.
“The stewards had just given up,” he says. “It was just lawlessness. People were calling their mates telling them to come to Gate H so even more came. It ended up being a great big group of locals who had only come to soak up the atmosphere, got pissed and then realised they could get in.
“People couldn’t believe their luck. Most didn’t look like thugs — there were lots of young girls going in too. The police got really lucky. There could’ve been a crush, people with knives, terrorists, anything could have happened.”
At 7.09pm the exit doors at gate G are once again forced open. This time the ticketless hordes who break in are met by angry fans who tackle, punch, kick and restrain as many of the intruders as possible. Video shows one intruder trying to convince them to release a friend of his, which they eventually do when it becomes clear that no stewards or police officers are coming to help.
7.09pm
At about 7.10pm, stewards and Uefa volunteers in blocks 102, 103 and 104 are ordered to start checking people’s tickets in the seats.
One steward has described it as a “thankless task”. As he wades through the rows, ticketless fans wave a screengrab of an electronic ticket in front of him on their phone, before “making a run for it” to another section.
There are more claims that Wembley staff opened exit doors in exchange for money. A fan sitting elsewhere in the stadium sees a few hundred people run into the stand. The same fan later stands next to a security guard during the game and can see his phone screen as he is sending and receiving text messages.
The guard appears to ask if people have made it in OK and later sends messages suggesting he had been paid thousands of pounds to open a door.
The fan claims that some stewards were “opening the door for people and getting them in and making it look like they had broken in when really it was him on the inside pushing the door and letting people in”. He claims the guard later made a phone call saying which gate he was working on and that subsequently a group of 50 people came through the concourse just before the penalty shootout.
One fan originally sat in the higher tier told Tucker that he had paid a steward £50 to be moved down to the lower tier because he “didn’t feel safe”. “People were coming down from the upper tiers all the time during the game,” he says.
Between 7pm and 8pm groups of ticketless fans maraud through the stands looking for empty space in which to stand. Very small numbers of stewards conduct occasional checks, though it’s clear that faked tickets are being accepted. Several ticketless fans station themselves near Starmer and his wife, raising the question of whether he could have come to harm. A handful of stewards and one railing separate the Italy team’s dugout from a block where 200 ticketless fans have taken hold.
Kick-off 8pm. The match begins. Two minutes later, Luke Shaw beats the Italian goalkeeper at his near post to put England 1-0 in front. There are waves of noise in the stands as England fans celebrate. In the lower tier, many ticketholders arrive to find their seats taken, with those who have taken them unwilling to move and stewards doing little to help. The smell of cannabis drifts across to the media section. The son of Roberto Mancini, the Italian manager, ends up sitting on the steps to watch the first half.
With England ahead 1-0 at half-time, thousands are standing in Wembley Way waiting to join the celebrations they hope will follow. Others are roaming the outer concourses of the stadium, looking to find a way in. One YouTuber, who goes by the name J2Hundred, films himself and half a dozen others forcing open an exit door and climbing the stairs to take a seat in the upper tier of the stadium for the second half.
9.30pm
As soon as Italy score their equaliser, a couple of English thugs attack an Italian man in his sixties and one in his twenties, believed to be his son, as they celebrate. The incident occurs in block 140, where many of the ticketless fans have entered through Gate H.
Mackay, who witnesses the attack, says the young Italian came away with “blood pouring from his mouth, teeth damaged and severe bruising to his face”.
An English fan who filmed the attack goes to find police down towards the pitch and shows an officer the video. “The officer insisted he would pursue it but nobody came and the stewards were helpless.”
During the game, Mike Tindall, the former England rugby player, is forced to break up another fight between brawling fans covered in blood. He told The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast: “I had to pull these guys apart. I said to one of them, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ And he wandered off, blood all over him. The guy on the floor had blood all over him.”
The referee signals that 90 minutes is up. It will take extra time — and ultimately penalties — to separate the teams.
Between the final whistle and the start of extra time several more ticketless fans make it into block 102, within just a few metres of the pitch. They are only moved away, though not out of the stadium, when fans with tickets confront them and appeal to a steward to help. Inside the stadium, fans are urinating on walls while others are openly consuming cocaine. Some were urinating in cups and then throwing them into the air.
At about 10.30pm, shortly before penalties, police are videoed kicking a man on the ground on Wembley Way. A short while later, the raucous mood is silenced as Italy win on penalties and the area fills with disappointed England fans queueing for the journey home. Many had hoped for scenes of celebration. Instead the FA faces serious questions about the failure to make the match secure — and a disciplinary investigation by Uefa.
The FA has announced a formal review of the failings which will include scrutiny of allegations that staff were bribed to let in fans. It said it had gone “above and beyond” what was recommended by an independent safety advisory group in deploying security staff and stewards. The FA pays for police officers inside the stadium but it rejected suggestions that the level of policing was a cost issue.
The FA said the level of public disorder outside the stadium became “unprecedented” and “nothing like we’ve ever seen at Wembley before any other event”.
The Met said it had relayed its concerns about fans planning to get into the stadium without tickets to the FA before the game and that hundreds of officers were on duty in the area.
A spokesman said the force would investigate footage of officers kicking a man on the ground at Wembley Way but insisted all officers are highly trained in how to deal with public disorder.
Looked like utter chaos and on a far bigger scale than I realised.
I don't understand. England, English fans, the English Football Association of all organisations should understand the importance of proper matchday security. How many times in the past has poor organisation led to disaster? If this were a capacity crowd on a normal day, you could well have seen crushing, injuries and potentially even deaths the likes of which haven't been seen for more than thirty years. It's a disgraceful report.
I don't understand. England, English fans, the English Football Association of all organisations should understand the importance of proper matchday security. How many times in the past has poor organisation led to disaster? If this were a capacity crowd on a normal day, you could well have seen crushing, injuries and potentially even deaths the likes of which haven't been seen for more than thirty years. It's a disgraceful report.
It probably kills the chance of us hosting the WC or anything else which is probably for the best
