Ticketless fans preyed on disabled supporters

Among the most horrifying accounts, Baroness Casey detailed how thugs were “targeting fans with disabilities”. 

“Disturbingly, it is clear that ticketless fans targeted disabled supporters in a predatory fashion near the turnstiles,” she wrote. 

“In one appalling incident, a ticketless fan tried to impersonate a steward and hijack a disabled child and separated him from his father, in order to trick his way through a pass gate,” the report found. 

The father told the review: “He’s then taken [his son’s] wheelchair and pushed it towards the door… Just as we got to the door we twigged what was going on and it turned out he’s just an England fan in a high-viz jacket that was literally hijacking a wheelchair to get into the stadium.” 

Drunk and drugged fans caused alarm at 9am

The investigation reveals that the alarm had been raised as early as 9.02am, when one council official alerted colleagues, FA and Wembley managers, the police and other local partners via WhatsApp: “Talking to fans… none with tickets, just here for the occasion. Might be a big feature of the day.”

By midday, an estimated 10,000 fans had already arrived in the Wembley area. Transport staff were staggered by the levels of drunken behaviour. 

“I’ve been doing this for over a decade and have worked on various other celebratory events, including New Year’s Eve. I have never seen drunkenness like this so early on in the day,” one London Underground official said. 

“I remember walking into the control room about nine o’clock, and there were England fans drinking as I walked in. And it was really, really early on and the alcohol was flowing. And I thought, ‘This is going to be a hard day’. I felt it was going to be really challenging.” 

Report hears of ‘children cowering behind parents’

As part of the review, a survey of misbehaviour among fans “suggests illegal-drug taking must have been widespread and taken place in plain sight”. 

“More than 3,500 respondents (47 per cent) said they saw illegal drug-taking when they arrived at Wembley,” the report found. 

One review respondent said it was “like a warzone, never seen anything like it. Vandalism, yob behaviour, broken glass, glass being thrown, highly drunk people, very horrible atmosphere for a lone female. Police barely seen.” 

Another added: “I witnessed bottles and cans being thrown at people, children cowering behind parents to hide, trees being ripped up and thrown, climbing on roofs and throwing things into the crowds.” 

Amid the chaos, staff were forced to stop checking Covid tests for around 40 minutes. The report found the Met Police had seen this problem coming, having “raised concerns about Covid-19 checks creating a risk of public order problems with the Wembley Safety Advisory Group ahead of the final”. 

Baroness Casey added that it was “difficult not to conclude that the events of 11 July, while clearly appalling, could very easily have been far worse, leading to serious injuries or even fatalities”. 

‘I was scared for my life’

After England’s defeat on penalties to Italy, Bukayo Saka was among players to face racist abuse by fans in the stands, which “mirrored” attacks on social media, the report added.

“Sadly and predictably, there was some racist abuse after the penalty shootout – although around me people quickly called it out and the abuse stopped almost immediately,” said one survey respondent.

Families of England players also told how they feared for their lives after being caught in the middle of rampaging hooligans at Gate G, where the fire door had been “destroyed”. 

“All of a sudden there was a rush from behind people trying to get through,” said the partner of one player. “Another person just pulled me out and asked me to get behind him in the queue. I was with my son and we were in bits, I was scared for my life.”

“There was a wave of bodies just flung to the floor, including a young lad in a wheelchair. It was terrifying; disgraceful,” a father of another player added.

The report also cited uncertainty about whether Wembley would host the final as a potential factor while capacity was reduced to 40,000 to fall within Covid regulations. Baroness Casey wrote that “it was apparent… that Uefa wanted a larger capacity for the semi-final and final and the facility to allow overseas fans and VIPs to attend”.

“Capacity was always an ongoing conversation, especially because Budapest was pushing,” one FA official told the report.

“That was always a standard conversation with the government around capacity. If we didn’t, the whole week [the semi-finals and final] would have gone to Budapest.”

Violence would have been worse had England won

Baroness Casey’s report is also critical of the decision to not have fan zones due to Covid-19 laws at the time. “The day of the final (‘Euro Sunday’) represented a perfect storm with Covid-19 regulations and the impact of the pandemic combining with national euphoria at the England men’s team reaching its first final since 1966,” she found.

“Shocking and unprecedented levels of criminal and anti-social behaviour” were evident from very early in the day, “which caught all agencies off guard and meant the police deployment arrived too late”, she added. 

“There was a collective failure by organisations involved in planning the Euro 2020 final to rigorously assess and mitigate the foreseeable risk of the scale of ticketless fans gathering at Wembley ahead of the match. 

“While many stadium staff acted with great courage in the face of appalling aggression, and made a number of potentially life-saving and split-second decisions, the final exposed weaknesses in Wembley’s security operation and the wider stewarding industry.”

The scenes would have been even worse had England won, the report added: “Victory in the penalty shoot-out would have created a further huge public safety risk, with up to 6,000 ticketless fans waiting to storm the stadium at the same time as doors were being opened to allow other fans to leave.

“Overall, there was a lack of recognition that the final was more than a football match to be managed – it was an occasion of national significance.”

‘Police planned for wrong risks’

Criticism of the Met Police surrounded the assumption that the majority of fan misbehaviour would take place after the game. 

“With the benefit of hindsight, the police planned for the wrong risks: disorder after the match, rather than first thing in the morning,” she wrote. 

“As a result, officers were deployed too late in the day to provide a visible uniformed presence and set the tone as fans started arriving and gathering in large numbers in the morning. By the time officers were on the ground, the area around Olympic Way was already effectively ‘lost’, with significant levels of anti-social behaviour occurring, fueled by alcohol and drug-consumption.”