Anarchy and looting marred the Rangers-Zenit UEFA Cup final in Manchester, which was supposed to have a carnival atmosphere. A report to Manchester City Council lays out the May 14 event, mentioned in the July issue of Professional Security Magazine.
In a word, all of the outrage and complaints – that there was not enough security, that alcohol was too available, that public urinating and littering was so allowed – are explained by the sheer numbers of fans, so that the authorities could not control what was agreed was a minority of violent and anti-social fans, well before the evening game kicked off.
The report concludes, basically, that nothing could have been done, once the thousands of fans decided to travel to Manchester from Glasgow, with or without a ticket for the stadium: ‘ it was agreed that it would be better for fans to be welcomed and provided for than to start with confrontation. Similarly, not to provide alcohol or to ban alcohol at the time seemed to be more likely to cause serious disorder and a ban on every city centre premise was seen to be far too draconian …’
The report adds that the final was an extreme example, because to Rangers fans Manchester was only ‘down the road’. But the report points out the trend of more and more fans without tickets travelling to support their team; the report questions whether such fans should be allowed to have the ‘right to party’ in the host city, and be provided for and transported away.
‘Live football matches with the potential to attract large crowds should only be shown in venues where conditions that currently pertain inside Premier League football grounds can be replicated including tickets, controlled access to alcohol, CCTV, access for stewarding and policing. For example the recent screening of the UEFA Champions League Final to 7,000 fans at the MEN Arena went very well.’ The report admits (after the event) that Piccadilly Gardens is ‘not a suitable space to use for a large-scale event’.
On the one hand, the report ends, ‘Well over 100,000 Glasgow Rangers fans
together with fans of Zenit St Petersburg and many neutrals gathered in city
centre Manchester for an impromptu party.’ On the other, sheer weight of numbers meant in Piccadilly Gardens fighting and looting, assaults on police and stewards, and ‘the willingness of numbers of Rangers fans to urinate anywhere they wished’.
Estimates of how many Rangers fans would visit the city but without a ticket got revised up and up. No-one knows how many did visit, but it was put at more than 100,000. It meant a drinking free for all. As the report put it: "The Local Organising Committee (LOC) agreed that GMP would take a ‘relaxed’ stance on the designated ‘no drinking’ areas. The street drinking laws were effectively unenforceable due to the numbers of fans anticipated.
By contrast, ‘UEFA regulations forbid the consumption of alcohol in the stadium and the LOC had a clear policy to refuse the consumption of alcohol in the immediate environment of the stadium.’
Disorder was generally blamed on the failure of the big screen at Piccadilly Gardens, but fans arrived from the morning and there was trouble all day. In the words of the report there were ‘issues of anti-social behaviour and public disorder prior to the failure of the screen signal’. At 11.30am, missiles were thrown at the stage and there was the first, reported, fight between fans. "The first act on
stage lasted only 20 minutes out of the 45 minutes scheduled because they
were pelted with cans and coins. No other acts performed on stage that day
for safety reasons."
By noon, fence lines were breached and stewards tried to direct people to other fanzones. In the afternoon, a Zenit St Petersburg fan who climbed onto a shop roof to wave a Zenit flag was assailed with bottles and missiles from Rangers fans. It got worse: in the sterile words of the report: "At 6pm the stewards’ role changed from crowd management to protecting property and preventing public disorder."
in Piccadilly Gardens, fans jumped over the security barrier and climbed on
top of a merchandising sales unit. "Large numbers of people were jumping up and down on the roof and urinating on top of the unit. Although the police were called the sheer numbers surrounding them meant there was little they could do." By 7pm the unit was overrun – that is, still before the football itself – and staff left for their own safety, unable to bring the shutters down. On returning the next day, everything was stolen. At about the same time, stewards helped staff at the Carlsberg Marquee to safety; as they moved out ‘fans smashed down the marquee and looted the contents. The nearby Carlsberg tanker was damaged beyond repair.’
"The style of policing adopted by GMP for the UEFA Cup Final was to facilitate
a carnival atmosphere." Instead 39 police officers were injured. The report to councillors makes clear that much of their timetable of incidents comes from public space CCTV footage. From the report, it is plain that the priority was to keep the actual televised event, at the City of Manchester Stadium, safe: the strategy was ‘to retain the majority of those un-ticketed fans in the city centre,
and remove the chance of any major incidents at the stadium’. This, the report admits, was a risk ‘but in principle it worked’.
In other words, the priority was to ensure for fans with tickets, sponsors and the UEFA VIPs a ‘quality event’. Similarly, ‘cleansing teams scheduled to commence fan zone clean-ups after the end of the match were advised by GMP to remain outside the city centre because of the public disorder. The teams were re-directed to the stadium and approach roads …’ Indeed, in the report’s conclusion, it says ‘the events and the final at the City of Manchester Stadium were deemed to be hugely successful’.
Lightmedia, the firm responsible for the big screens in the city centre, make plain the threats to their staff: when one of the technicians went out onto the cabin roof to realign the aerial at Piccadilly Gardens ‘he was pelted with bottles and missiles, one of which hit him on the forehead. At this stage they couldn’t get hold of events control or security as mobile phones were not working.’ (The report later adds that because of pressure on networks there were ‘regular failures of mobile phones’.) The technical problem was not with the screen but the signal. At 7.30pm in fact because of the threat of violence the Lightmedia man in charge ‘instructed his staff to abandon the screen and run’.
Sheer congestion meant plans to control for instance carrying of glass bottles could not be enforced: "Although there was a ban on taking glass and bottles into fan zones, sheer numbers meant this was less strictly enforced at certain entrances."
Such an event affected more than the city centre – other towns like Blackpool saw fans. Also, other sectors were affected by fans, transport for instance: "Many fans were stranded at Piccadilly Station which although it stayed open overnight, had to be closed at one point given the sheer number of fans converging there." Train services were ‘overwhelmed’ by numbers. Alleyways were ‘impromptu urinals’.
The city centre generally suffered from fans urinating – "The reality is that significant numbers of people disregarded the provision of temporary toilets anyhow and urinated at the most personally convenient place as opposed utilising facilities provided for them. This behaviour has been the subject of widespread complaints and protest after the event from residents and businesses and the City Council concurs with the views expressed." People were ‘clearly not prepared for the scale of the disruption or for the levels of litter and anti-social behaviour’.
You can read the council report on the council website:
