18th February, 2023
Jurgen Klopp does not think UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin should resign over the shambolic staging of last season’s Champions League final.
However, the Liverpool manager suggested the damning review of the Stade de France showpiece might be a resigning matter for someone senior involved in planning the event.
UEFA was found “primarily responsible” for the “near-miss” at the Paris final, where “the parallels between Hillsborough 1989 and Paris 2022” were described in an independent review as “palpable”.
The review, commissioned by UEFA, was released on Monday after an investigation into events surrounding the May 28 fixture in the French capital. It concluded UEFA and French authorities were wrong to blame thousands of Liverpool supporters with “fake tickets” for the concerning scenes outside the stadium turnstiles.
French police were criticised for their treatment of fans, which included using tear gas, while the review stated it was “remarkable that no one lost their life”.
Klopp suggested the venue was badly chosen in the first instance.
The Reds boss was asked about the review’s outcome, which came in a week that saw it confirmed Ceferin would stand unopposed for another stint in the UEFA presidency.
Regarding whether Ceferin should quit, Klopp said: “No. I’m not sure who made the decision, to be honest. I’m the boss of some people as well, and on a lot of things I’m not 100 per cent on the subject. I get information from different people, and then you make a decision. The better the information you get, the better the decisions are.
“I don’t think Mr Ceferin made the decision, but somebody put all the papers together saying what the best place is. I can’t see him flying to Paris or Rome or Berlin and saying: ‘Oh, it’s not that good.’ There are other people who bring that together. Maybe one of them should have a think if there is not a better place for them in another job, I don’t know.
“But I think really Paris was the worst possible [place] available in that specific area on that day. It’s not a stadium that is used to it every week, every two weeks, like a lot of big stadiums in Europe are.”
Klopp added: “From the first moment, I thought it wasn’t a good idea [to play the game in Paris].
“Some people who work there should have done better. Everybody who was there knows the people who worked there didn’t know 100 per cent what exactly they are doing.”