Klopp says Ceferin shouldn’t quit but Paris was ‘worst possible place’ for final | Jurgen Klopp

Jürgen Klopp says UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin shouldn’t resign over the appalling organization of the Champions League final last season, but there must be responsibility for the match being moved in the “worst” place possible in Paris.

An independent panel commissioned by UEFA has concluded that European football’s governing body bore “primary responsibility” for the dangerous scenes outside the Stade de France last May, when the actions of Liverpool fans helped prevent a “massive fatal disaster”.

Ceferin, who will stand unopposed for re-election for another four years in April, has presided over several chaotic and dangerous finals in recent years, including the 2020 European Championship at Wembley and last season’s Europa League final at Sevilla. But Klopp believes UEFA officials who chose the French capital to host the final when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ruled out St Petersburg should consider their positions rather than the president.

Asked if Ceferin, who hasn’t commented on the panel’s damaging findings, should resign, the Liverpool manager replied: “No. I don’t know who made the decision, to be honest. I’m also the boss. from some people, and on a lot of things I’m not 100% on the subject. So I get information from different people, and then you make a decision. The better information you get, the better the decisions.

“I don’t think Mr Ceferin made the decision, but someone put all the paperwork together saying where the best place is. I don’t see him flying off to Paris or Rome or Berlin and saying, “Oh, that’s not so good.” There are other people who collect this. Maybe one of them should wonder if there’s a better place for him in another job, I don’t know.

“But I think Paris was the worst possible [place] available in that specific area that day. Short term. It is not a stadium that is used to it every week, every two weeks, like many large stadiums in Europe are. The big cities in Europe where they play every two weeks are used a lot more for different reasons. You could have gone to Wembley – I don’t know the last time it was there, maybe it didn’t work out [because of that] – but it was a special situation. You could have gone to Berlin. Madrid [Bernabéu] is under reconstruction but other places were probably available. From the first moment I thought it was not a good idea [to be in Paris] but in the end this specific place could have been much better organized than it was.

Klopp, who had family members caught up in the chaos in Paris, added: “The moment UEFA makes the decision, I think they take it because they think it’s right, of course. What other reason could it be? But some of the people who work there should have done better. Everyone who was there knows that the people who work there didn’t know 100% exactly what they were doing. They’re not used to it. to large crowds.

“You can’t work with volunteers on a day like this when so many people arrive there. Volunteers for the first or second time, it does not work; you need experienced people and it can be a great day. But that day, of course, was different.