September 26 – UEFA has been accused of giving “completely untrue” evidence to its own independent inquiry into the chaotic scenes that marred the 2022 Champions League final.
A string of allegations has been made by Sharon Burkhalter-Lau, who was second in command at the game and was UEFA’s operations director at the time.
The match descended into near-fatal disaster when thousands of supporters suffered dangerously long queues and bad policing.
UEFA appointed a panel of experts to look into what happened. While the panel said UEFA had “primary responsibility”, it ruled the failure was not principally the fault of the safety and security unit whose role is to oversee safety, but of Burkhalter-Lau’s events division.
According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the safety and security unit is headed by Zeljko Pavlica who, it claims, is best friend of UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
The Guardian says it has seen memos sent to UEFA’s general secretary, Theodore Theodoridis, and three other senior officials in which Burkhalter-Lau rejected as “completely untrue” UEFA’s evidence that the safety unit had been marginalised.
According to the newspaper, Burkhalter-Lau alleged that Pavlica and his team did not turn up for crucial meetings about safety including in the run-up to the final.
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