Liverpool news: Pundit hits out after statement reveal – ‘I don’t care who you are’
Frank McAvennie has claimed Uefa were “looking for trouble” in the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in May.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the former West Ham striker “doesn’t blame” Reds fans for the way they acted on the day of the final.
As revealed by the Guardian (22 September), Uefa’s statement blaming Liverpool fans for causing a delay to the start of the match was prepared a “considerable time” before the day of the game.
In the planning stages leading up to the day of the match the statement blaming fans in the event of a late kick-off was decided as the one that would be used if the start of the match had to be delayed.
McAvennie insisted Uefa were wrong to blame the Reds’ supporters.
“Every fan at every club has done something stupid before and Liverpool fans are no different,” he told Football Insider.
“They’ll put their hands up and admit to it. The final was not their fault and for them to come out and blame Liverpool fans, and to have written it before the day of the game, means that they were looking for trouble and knew that the police weren’t going to hold back.
“I don’t care who you are, when the police look for trouble there’s going to be trouble. I’ve been all over the world with Liverpool fans and they’re great. If the police fire in then they’re going to retaliate. So I wouldn’t blame the Liverpool fans in any way for anything that happened in that final. I think it was the police that did it all wrong. They were ushering them and bullying them into places they shouldn’t be going.
“If they [Paris] couldn’t handle it they shouldn’t have taken it. Uefa should have made sure that it was right. They weren’t ready for that onslaught of fans, you can’t blame Liverpool fans for wanting to go to a cup final. It should have been prepared a lot better. Then when it all kicked off the blame game started and everyone got blamed except for the people that did it.“
In other news, a pundit has claimed Liverpool have secret weapon in race to sign Jude Bellingham after journalist’s update.