The Heysel Stadium disaster ( ; ; ; ) was a crowd disaster that occurred on 29 May 1985 when Juventus fans were escaping from an attack by Liverpool fans while they were pressed against a wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, before the start of the 1985 European Cup final. The stadium was in need of maintenance and had not been adequately updated.
Approximately an hour before the Juventus-Liverpool final was due to kick off, incidents of aggression between the two sets of supporters were taking place across the flimsy divide between the Liverpool section and what was intended to have been the "neutral" section, populated by those who had purchased tickets in Belgium. The throwing of objects back and forth led to larger scale physical altercations, and the chicken wire fence was soon ripped down. After initial fighting, the (largely Juventus) fans in the neutral section began to run away from the Liverpool fans who had become involved, initially towards the pitch (where Belgian police would not allow them to go) and the exit (where they were not permitted to leave), and then in the direction of the decrepit wall. Fans already standing near the wall were crushed; eventually the wall collapsed, providing an escape route for some while contributing to the fatalities. Many people climbed over to safety, but many others died or were badly injured. The game was played despite the pre-match incidents by authorities and organizers' joint decision for public policy doctrine reasons after a state of siege was declared in the city, with Juventus winning 1–0.
The tragedy resulted in all English football clubs being placed under an indefinite ban by Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) from all European competitions (lifted in 1990–91), with Liverpool being excluded for an additional three years, later reduced to one, and 14 Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years' imprisonment, with the Belgian authorities also being blamed, including police captain Johan Mahieu, who had been in charge of security, found guilty of manslaughter. The disaster was later described as "the darkest hour in the history of the UEFA competitions".
Background
In May 1985, Liverpool were the defending European Champions' Cup winners, having won the competition after defeating Roma on penalties in the previous season's final. Again, they would face Italian opposition, Juventus, which had won unbeaten the 1983–84 Cup Winners' Cup. Juventus had a team of many of Italy's 1982 World Cup winning team, which played for Juventus for many years, and its playmaker, Michel Platini, was considered the best footballer in Europe and was named Footballer of The Year by the magazine France Football for the second year in a row in December 1984. Both teams were placed in the two first positions in the UEFA club ranking at the end of the previous season and were regarded by the specialist press as the two best teams on the continent. Both teams had contested the 1984 European Super Cup four months earlier, with a 2–0 victory for the Italian team.
Despite its status as Belgium's national stadium, Heysel Stadium was in a poor state of repair by the 1985 European Cup final. The 55-year-old stadium had not been sufficiently maintained for several years, and large parts of the facility were literally crumbling. For example, the outer wall had been made of cinder block, and Liverpool fans who did not have tickets were seen kicking holes in the wall to get in. In some areas of the stadium, there was only one turnstile, and some fans attending the game claimed that they were never searched or asked for their tickets.
Liverpool players and fans reportedly expressed surprise at the stadium's condition, despite reports from Arsenal fans that the ground was a "dump" when Arsenal had played there a few years earlier. They were also surprised that Heysel was chosen despite its poor condition, especially since Barcelona's Camp Nou and Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu were both available. Juventus President Giampiero Boniperti and Liverpool CEO Peter Robinson urged the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to choose another venue and claimed that Heysel was not in any condition to host a European Cup final, especially one involving two prominent European clubs. However, UEFA refused to consider a move. It was later discovered that UEFA's inspection of the stadium had lasted just thirty minutes.
The stadium was crammed with 58,000 to 60,000 supporters, with more than 25,000 for each team. The two ends behind the goals comprised all-standing terraces, each end split into three zones. The Juventus end was O, N, and M, and the Liverpool end was X, Y, and Z, as deemed by the Belgian court after the disaster. However, the tickets for the Z section were reserved for neutral Belgian fans in addition to the rest of the stadium. The idea of the large neutral area was opposed by both Liverpool and Juventus, as it would provide an opportunity for fans of both clubs to obtain tickets from agencies or from ticket touts outside the ground and thereby create a dangerous mix of fans. The Liverpool and Sections X and the mixed, but largely Juventus, supporters in Section Z (a supposedly neutral section for which tickets had been sold locally in Belgium) stood merely metres apart. The boundary between the two was marked by temporary chain link fencing and a central thinly-policed no man's land. Hooligans began to throw flares, bottles and stones across the divide and picked up stones from the crumbling terraces beneath them. Some fans managed to climb over to safety, but many others died or were badly injured.
In retaliation for the events in Section Z, many Juventus fans advanced down the stadium running track to help other Juventus supporters, but police intervention stopped the advance. A large group of Juventus fans fought the police with rocks, bottles and stones for two hours. One Juventus fan was also seen firing a starting gun at Belgian police.
Match
It was decided that the match should eventually start for public policy doctrine reasons because abandoning the match would have risked inciting further disturbances. the players took the field knowing that people had died. Years later, Liverpool captain Phil Neal said that in hindsight, it would have been "a better decision" to call off the game.
At the end of the game, the trophy was given in front of the stadium's Honor Stand by UEFA President Jacques Georges to Juventus Captain Gaetano Scirea. The chants of fans of both teams in the stands and the massive invasion of the pitch by journalists and fans at the end of the match generated the collective hysteria. Some of the Italian club players celebrated the title in the middle of the pitch in front of their fans in the M section, and some of the Liverpool players applauded their fans between the X and Z sections.
Liverpool players only realised the extent of the tragedy when they boarded their bus at a Brussels hotel to go to the airport, when a crowd of Juventus supporters surrounded the bus. Police had to escort the bus out of the lot.