To think that Wembley should have security to stop people forcing their way in!

[PRabbit]

The news is reporting that a number of ticketless fans have forced their way into the stadium and occupied other people’s seats. The match has not been paused (which imo it should have been).

AIBU to think this shouldn’t be possible! What if they were terrorists instead of fans? Or what if there were enough of them to cause a crush?

Not RTFT

They have security of course.

I'm guessing it was a fairly sizeable number of people.

It's understandable that they weren't prepared for that IMO

And yes it would have been men.

After the match I said to DH I'm worried there's going to be trouble tonight.
I hadn't seen the pre match stuff. FFS.

18 months of non normal life
The Great big deal of the final
Out drinking with loads of people for first time in ages
We lost

Not a good combination.

I used to work in events. Unfortunately security isn't as effective as you might hope some of the time. People who are going to cause trouble know that security guards can't arrest them, and they always manage to be long gone when the police turn up.

unfortunately, security is only going to be effective if you have one on one. If there are dozens charging at you, then would be pretty impossible to stop the stampede if security doesn’t match the numbers. This is about a minority behaving badly, and is why the final should have kicked off early afternoon instead, giving people less time to get pissed which then leads to these situations. People had been drinking since lunch time and before.

It does look like there’s been some security cock ups though and lessons do need to be learned

Like PPs I've been at Wembley when there have been security issues, as far back as 2013. Police numbers were woefully low at the time and security staff were unable to deal with issues. They've learnt nothing since then, clearly.

Someone could have easily run in with a pipe bomb or similar.

Why are people so keen to blame others for the disgusting behaviour of these so called fans?

It's not the fault of security or the lack of big screens, or whoever else others keep saying.

The only ones to blame are that group of fans who behaved appallingly. Many are in screen with faces uncovered. Everyone should be plastered in social media until they are found and made to take responsibility for their misbehaviour.

It's fine though because they all had LFT tests.

Yeah, couldn’t believe the security hadn’t been beefed up sufficiently to avoid being overwhelmed like that. Biggest sporting event since...a long bloody time. Surely they would have envisaged this as a possible scenario? Saying the 'fans are to blame, not security' doesn't really matter. In practical terms the security on the day failed.

Definitely think the Stadium needs to look into security coverage and why they weren’t prepared sufficiently. Police though? Highly doubt anyone in the Met had the day off yesterday, all rest days would have been cancelled. You can thank our lovely government for cuts in that area.

Have seen online comments querying why unticketed people were even allowed to get that close to the venue, which I think has merit - if they’d had checkpoints further back that’d have helped manage the crowds better.

I was at the game yesterday. There was the least security presence I’ve ever seen at a major event, sporting or otherwise, and I did not see any police at all. It was utterly shocking.

I’ve been to countless games at Wembley, and it’s always been fine and managed well. I was at the Denmark game which was also completely fine.

Yesterday’s problem was mainly caused by the thousands of people who turned up, without tickets, to drink all day outside the stadium with pretty much zero police or security presence. And an 8pm kick off so boozing all day. And yes the vast, vast majority were men. They should have a wider exclusion zone around the stadium where only ticket holders can gather.

I do not consider them to be football fans desperate to see their team - just mindless idiots emboldened by insufficient security, alcohol and mindless mob mentality.

Ignoring the Covid clusterfuck for a moment, what about Hillsborough? Manchester Arena? This was a complete failure of public safety and needs a thorough review.

And I think it’s clear that hundreds - if not thousands - of people got into the stadium. Thank goodness it was under capacity anyway. I saw several people being ejected during the game.

Ignoring the Covid clusterfuck for a moment, what about Hillsborough? Manchester Arena? This was a complete failure of public safety and needs a thorough review.

Exactly. That the biggest stadium in the UK hosting the biggest sporting event had such a security lapse is pretty shocking. They'd have known there'd be huge gangs of blotto blokes trying their luck. I agree with the pp who said security checks and barriers should have been way further back.

We were there a few weeks ago for a lower league play off game. I said at the time, I hoped things would be better for a "proper" game with large capacity (the play off only had 10k supporters).

Firstly, outside, there was a huge group of fans enjoying themselves, which turned a bit ugly with them throwing cans of beer at each other for "fun". Then there was a minor fight between a handful of fans. Despite there being probably a dozen police officers in sight, literally within maybe 50 feet, none of them bothered to break it up, until one of the fans fell to the ground. Then a single PC entered the crowd and clearly struggled to protect the guy on the ground - all the while there were 4 mounted officers just watching from the edge of the crowd. Eventually, they and other officers moved in, but they were painfully slow, first to help the guy injured and then slow to help their own officer.

Then upon entering the ground, there was a row of security guards measuring our bags (they have to be under A4 size) and taking great delight if a bag was slightly larger or not a clear see through carrier bag. The usual "smoke and mirrors" of security akin to airports. They completely ignored people with thick/padded jackets who clearly had things in their bulging pockets. As usual, they just go for the "easy" targets.

Inside the security staff were going around telling people to put their masks on, but, as per usual, only targetting small groups, women, children, etc. They completely ignored the large groups who were loud, chanting, singing etc. Again, easy targets were the only ones approached. We were sat on in a side stand, and were told to sit down by nearby stewards whenever we stood to applaud etc - but in the blocks behind the goals the fans were stood up all the time, the stewards in those areas ignoring them.

It's time the security staffing was beefed up. We need staff willing and able to stand up to the offenders and not just ignore them and for the staff to feel good about themselves by harrassing the people who aren't causing trouble!

Am just looking at the requirements to work security at a large event like this - looks like there’s no actual distinguishing between a licence for small-scale door staff and large scale events like this.

Looking at the course, it’s 5 days, covers a lot of legislation, and the “conflict resolution” parts of it are geared more towards 1:1 de-escalation.

Surely there should be mandatory training for handling large crowds, being outnumbered, tactics for calling for backup etc?

Also wonder if there’s a ratio required of people:security? If there is, it definitely needs beefing up, especially for high volatility events like this.

@BringBackDoves

I was at the game yesterday. There was the least security presence I’ve ever seen at a major event, sporting or otherwise, and I did not see any police at all. It was utterly shocking.

I’ve been to countless games at Wembley, and it’s always been fine and managed well. I was at the Denmark game which was also completely fine.

Yesterday’s problem was mainly caused by the thousands of people who turned up, without tickets, to drink all day outside the stadium with pretty much zero police or security presence. And an 8pm kick off so boozing all day. And yes the vast, vast majority were men. They should have a wider exclusion zone around the stadium where only ticket holders can gather.

I do not consider them to be football fans desperate to see their team - just mindless idiots emboldened by insufficient security, alcohol and mindless mob mentality.

Ignoring the Covid clusterfuck for a moment, what about Hillsborough? Manchester Arena? This was a complete failure of public safety and needs a thorough review.

And I think it’s clear that hundreds - if not thousands - of people got into the stadium. Thank goodness it was under capacity anyway. I saw several people being ejected during the game.

It wasn't people. It was men. I've rewatched the bbc footage and iwhite men made up the vast vast majority of the "stormers"

It's so embarrassing. Mostly men. Not true football fans. But Scotland fans came down in their droves without tickets aswell, so not unheard of.

Clearly those in authority underestimated the whole thing. Very badly.

Hopefully there will be an investigation.
The fault lies in many areas.

This is a huge event, and we should have learnt From big events before, how to co-ordinate, from the Olympics, Ariana Grande concert, hills borough etc.

There as a policeman on the main news saying we were in control, we dealt with the issue. His words were just nonsense. Does he honestly expect us to believe that?

The whole thing was underestimated and an embarrassment. It was very under policed. It was very understaffed with security staff and stewards at Wembley itself.

One travel journalist, on the 6pm news? said that Wembley is now built up with apartments , and there's limited a access in and out, which is true. He said it ruined the whole atmosphere. And he was in a press box!

The FA and Wembley officials themselves will have to account for themselves to the investigation.

What a shame. What a mess. How embarrassing.

God it’s disgusting. Why do we put up with it? Why do we celebrate football so much when we know what it leads to? Why do we let thousands breach social distancing rules for this? Why are we surprised when the world hates us? Why can’t we call out idiotic male violence without being told that women are just as bad?

UK has a drinking and thug problem.
We know this. Much as we don't like it.

So, even I could have predicted that something like this would happen. Unless strict controls had bern taken to contain it.

The sports journalist on the 6 pm news said that he had been told By many men in the weeks leading up to the final, that the security around Wembley was very lax and if they don't have tickets it was highly likely they would get in.

We were there for the semi final - made sure we had our NHS Covid pass, ID etc, I could’ve shown the stewards a picture of my dog - they had zero interest in checking them properly.

We sat in the upper tier and didn’t see one steward, people were smoking throughout the match and got alcohol to their seats.

I’ve been to Wembley many times before, for FA Cup matches and play off matches and never experienced that before - usually the security is very good

We’ve done LFT every 2 days since, luckily all negative so far