Wembley Stadium is ‘match-fit’ for hosting the Champions League Final in June, according to Baroness Casey in a ‘stock-take’ report.
To recap, the former civil servant was asked by the Football Association to review safety and security at the north London stadium after the mass efforts to gate-crash the England-Italy European football tournament final in July 2021. Her review published in December 2021 of ‘disgraceful behaviour from thousands of ticketless fans’ (in the words of FA chief exec Mark Bullingham) found ‘huge use of drugs and alcohol on the street’, and called it ‘a source of national shame’ and a near-miss in terms of casualties. While she described the day’s ‘drunkenness, drug taking, irresponsibility, criminality, and abuse of innocent people’ as ‘shocking and intolerable’, some of what happened had been ‘sadly foreseeable’, she added.
In her stock-take, Casey wrote that she was disappointed that one of her recommendations from a couple of years ago – that the UK Government considers a new category for football matches of national significance – has not yet been adopted. She said: “I remain of the view that there are some major football matches – exceptional in nature and rare in frequency – that warrant a higher degree of resourcing, management and oversight and the commitment of all parties to a ‘no fail’ approach.” She noted that the leaders and organisations engaged in the management of major events at Wembley have a clear commitment to what some described as a ‘no fail’ approach that can withstand the most severe tests. “But some vulnerabilities could develop over time if current relationships, personnel, levels of commitment (and, frankly, memory of how events unfolded on Euro Sunday) were to change or recede,” she wrote.
She recommended that the Football Association, with the Department for Culture, the licensing body the SGSA (Sports Ground Safety Authority) and its local partners (in particular the Metropolitan Police and Brent Council) ‘take the opportunity of the Champions League Final on June 1 to capture best practice for ensuring the safety and security of events’. The SGSA has taken up another of Casey’s recommendations, to undertake a review of stewarding ‘with research in two phases: looking first to improve understanding of the labour market for stewarding; and second to examine structural issues contributing to the current challenges’. Wembley now has a standing contract, with budgetary cover, ‘to ensure contracted security/stewarding companies pay the London Living Wage as a minimum’.
Zone ex
As for who’s accountable for ‘zone ex’, also known as ‘the last mile’, the route typically from a train station to the stadium, Casey noted a PSPO (Public Space Protection Order) by Brent, ‘particularly to control the sale and consumption of alcohol around Wembley on the occasions of major events’. While she praised the ‘better presence of Wembley stewards, local authority enforcement officers and police across the zone’, she warned that ‘some ambiguities’ remain, ‘and which could create vulnerabilities in the longer term should partnerships and personalities not remain as strong’.
Casey had asked for an FA-led national campaign for a ‘change in attitudes towards supporter behaviours’, namely ‘negative behaviours such as tragedy chanting and racism’. On ticketless fans trying to gain illicit entry to Wembley, she called for ‘early legislative action on tailgating’ by the Government. She noted that such behaviours ‘carry significant risk for the safe and secure management of major events. A small number of ticketless fans trying again and again to gain illicit access cause distress to legitimate fans around them and divert significant resources away from stewardship and wider management, security, safety and public enjoyment of the event’.
More in the January 2024 print edition of Professional Security Magazine.
