Football has a strange sense of allegory. If you didn’t want to believe that up to now, you were in the right place in London on Sunday evening. More precisely: in Wembley, in the European Championship final between England and Italy. Because what could have been more symbolic for this all in all crazy, punky-anarchic day than kicking the gate? Without knocking or asking, let alone buying a ticket. In the second minute, the English team scored their opening goal; they fell, as the saying goes, with the door into the house. In the style of their fans in front of the stadium, who caused a lot of trouble.
During the day in London one could observe very well how the mood built more and more into a latently uncontrollable storm. London had awakened under a cloudless sky, and anyone who set out through the city center saw how people of all ages, mostly men, had already wrapped themselves in English flags and jerseys that morning. They moved to the emblematic squares of the city until they were full. So yourself, and the seats too.
In the late afternoon the situation escalated here and there. In Leicester Square, where English fans had peacefully presented the hit list of football pop songs at noon – from “Wonderwall” to “Sweet Caroline” to the inevitable “Football’s Coming Home” – cans and bottles were now flying as if the name was the right soundtrack -Title “Anarchy In The UK” from the Sex Pistols. The same thing was later seen around Wembley Stadium. Even before the stadium gates opened – three hours before the start of the game – the entrances were hopelessly overcrowded, and it was obvious that far more people had come than the stadium had seats available. A little more than 60,000 spectators were admitted to the final at Wembley on Sunday. However, the English media spoke of at least 250,000 people drinking, singing and jumping around the stadium – a number that appeared to be plausible. And it could get a bit queasy.
What was particularly surprising was that the preventive measures were more lax than in any previous tournament. In contrast to what had long since become customary long before the start of the pandemic, the final site was not cordoned off widely. Basically not at all. On top of that, the number of security guards wasn’t even close to being appropriate for the crowd. “We are 3,000 security stewards here. But there are hardly any police here,” said a security officer in front of the stadium while smoking a cigarette, completely sweaty and visibly bruised. He saw a couple of dog handlers and a couple of mounted police officers – far too few to control the situation. Supposedly reinforcements had been requested, he hoped for it. Because until then, the security forces, whether private or public, had been completely overwhelmed. All the more so when exactly what had been suggested happened.
The Sky-Studio is evacuated for security reasons, the security guards tower.
A number of fans, who obviously did not come from London’s financial aristocracy, but from the young declassed of the present, and probably could not even have afforded the cheapest ticket of officially 292 euros, tried to storm the stadium gates, with the door slamming in the house later her team. They rattled fences and tore down one or the other. In several places they were able to overcome the security forces and storm stairs. A spokesman for Wembley Stadium said before the game that the “incident” took place on the outermost security ring and that no people had entered the stadium without a ticket. That was wishful thinking and was later corrected. There were certainly fans in the stadium, said a spokesman at half time. In any case, when the game started, the entrances were blocked by fans below the press box. Individual videos with scenes of violence were circulating on the Internet.
But with all security incidents: Nobody could deny that the atmosphere in the stadium was incomparable. The predominantly English audience even overshadowed the Passion and also the decibels that can be heard from the Clásicos in Spain or Argentina, from the passionate duels between hate rivals in the Camp Nou in Barcelona and in the Bernabéu in Madrid, from the Monumental and / or the Bombonera in Buenos Aires. But: While the Italians in the stadium had equalized England’s early lead by Leonardo Bonucci (67th), there was an aggressive atmosphere outside. Uli Köhler, reporter for the TV broadcaster Sky, told the SZ that the situation was “a bit scary”. The Sky-Studio on the stairs in front of the stadium was evacuated on the advice of the police, and the 20 stewards assigned to secure the studio were then literally piled up.
“I don’t want to imagine what happens if England lose the final,” a security guard had said before the game, and he let out the smoke of his cigarette. He didn’t know the outcome after a penalty shoot-out. In the end, at least in the stadium, the sadness outweighed it.