We have got a family christening this weekend otherwise I am sure my son would have been in Paris. Watching the terrible pictures and videos of fans being teargassed and in distress, I am glad he wasn’t.
Big events always seem to take UEFA and the police by surprise.
They know there will be a huge contingent of supporters from Liverpool and Real Madrid but seemed totally ill-equipped to deal with it.
What appalled me was the aggressive way police dealt with supporters who had tickets, many of them families. They would show their tickets and still get teargassed.
There was a very upsetting scene of a Spanish mother, father and daughter needing help to dab the gas out of their eyes.
All that for going to a game? It’s an outrage and you could see the fear among fans. They were treated like animals.
You accept there are some people there who are trying to make life difficult and maybe get in without tickets. But they are a small minority and there is enough money in football to ensure proper security measures are in place.
It shouldn’t be complicated to organise.
I feel very sorry for fans caught up in trouble through no fault of their own, or those who had to miss the match altogether.
It’s a sad day for the game.
