'The Wembley Jib' How ticketless fans got into the final

A policeman on the radio was saying, the reason for a small police presence inside the ground was because Wembley wouldn't pay for more, relying instead on a private security company, who didn't have the numbers required so used other firms, who employed mainly students on the minimum wage.

In no way were these youngsters going to be able to do the job of the police, hence the fighting, guys getting in without tickets etc

Why the powers that be didn't just step in and foot the bill i have no idea...It will come back and bite the football authorities big time as reading reports of the whole debacle at Wembley from the European press, nobody has a good word to say about how the whole thing was organised.
 
Was also surprised by how pre-meditated it all was. They had fake tickets made. Guy seems to talk like he’s done nothing wrong, talking about how his dad might not get another chance etc
 
"Jibbed?" Should have been "Chibbed"
I suppose it's beyond all decency for the perpetrators to make a donation to charity.
 
Aragorn said:
A policeman on the radio was saying, the reason for a small police presence inside the ground was because Wembley wouldn't pay for more, relying instead on a private security company, who didn't have the numbers required so used other firms, who employed mainly students on the minimum wage.

In no way were these youngsters going to be able to do the job of the police, hence the fighting, guys getting in without tickets etc

Why the powers that be didn't just step in and foot the bill i have no idea...It will come back and bite the football authorities big time as reading reports of the whole debacle at Wembley from the European press, nobody has a good word to say about how the whole thing was organised.
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This is honestly a shambles, 3 categories of tickets available at €995, €595 and €295 and they still can't pay for the security required.

Makes the average ticket price around €625 and 60k fans in, upwards of €35m in ticketing income for UEFA... (Not deducting sponsors/hospitality)
 
I was surprised by how it all transpired on Sunday.

I have done work at Wembley for much of the past couple of years and it is a very well run stadium with a very diligent and professional delivery team. I've sat in loads of pre-match briefing meetings and the attention to detail is very high. I wasn't at the stadium on Sunday but clearly lots of things went badly wrong.

The policing operation was insufficient and the pre-match intelligence failed, because nobody had picked up on these large scale plans to break into the stadium. Then you add in the unprecedented numbers. There were external ticket cordons and checks but these were overwhelmed by the size of the crowd.

I was inside the stadium for the semi final against Denmark and it was boisterous and crowded outside even for that game, but Sunday was a different level in terms of the numbers and the behaviour of the crowd.

Saw an email yesterday from the stadium director which talked of facing an onslaught for over 6 hours, wave after wave of attempts to breach the stadium.
 
TCWNS1872 said:
They got in because the cops and the stewards weren’t doing their jobs properly. God forbid, but just imagine what could’ve have transpired if some headcase with a backpack (;)) had got in.
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Heaven forbid indeed. The planning involved still makes very interesting reading, and the use of the word "stormed" in the Guardian's headline certainly paints them in a bad light. I hardly doubt they're encouraging fans to commit similar acts this year.
 
BrooklynBlue said:
The age of entitlement. I deserve to see the game because…the avaricious are charging an arm and a leg to see a game of football.

Disgraceful from Wembley and the FA.
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I can empathise with their plight regarding affordability but as you say, the sense of entitlement is nothing new.
 
Souness86 said:
Bribed stewards basically ,some taking as little as £20.

Hardly the Hatton Garden heist is it?
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wasn't as simple as that given there were two lots of checks (covid and then ticket) prior to getting anywhere near any stewards that might be bribed.

I know someone who jibbed in for the Czech group game. He was sent a screenshotted negative covid result which worked, his mate then sent him a screenshot of the screen that appears when your e-ticket has been activated. Basically a green screen with a big white tick on it. He flashed that at the steward who was meant to activate the ticket who inexplicably let him in before trying to ask if it was a screenshot. My mate just walked off and towards the turnstiles which are massive at Wembley. Doubled up on the turnstile and was in.

The issues had happened for every game involving England on a lesser scale to Sunday and the authorities basically ignored them and hoped they'd go away to avoid scruntiny.
 
I personally thought the lower tier looked mobbed during the game. There wasn't the usual visible stairways you usually see at Wembley.

It looked fuller than 90k IMO.
 
ClockworkOrange said:
Heaven forbid indeed. The planning involved still makes very interesting reading, and the use of the word "stormed" in the Guardian's headline certainly paints them in a bad light. I hardly doubt they're encouraging fans to commit similar acts this year.
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Maybe its me, but I detected an almost neo-marxist flavour to it as though it was condoned behaviour despite the headline. I’m probably looking for something that isn’t there right enough, but the broadsheets are becoming more ideologically polarised as the weeks go by.

Moderate journalism is a dying, if not dead, species these days imho.
 
DT1872 said:
I personally thought the lower tier looked mobbed during the game. There wasn't the usual visible stairways you usually see at Wembley.

It looked fuller than 90k IMO.
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The lower tiers were hugely overcrowded except for the segregated section of the 1,000 Italians that had been flown in from Italy in a bubble direct from the airport.

The distribution of tickets for the event meant that the lower tiers were already sold at 100% capacity, even before ticketless fans ended up in them (2nd tier was sold at 50% capacity and upper tier was sold at 75% capacity).
 
TCWNS1872 said:
Maybe its me, but I detected an almost neo-marxist flavour to it as though it was condoned behaviour despite the headline. I’m probably looking for something that isn’t there right enough, but the broadsheets are becoming more ideologically polarised as the weeks go by.

Moderate journalism is a dying, if not dead, species these days imho.
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I knew as soon as i posted a link from the Guardian the thread would take a weird turn.
 
Craigste65 said:
That was quite common when we had the terraces and stadiums were not all seated. Guys on the turnstiles taking a bung to let people in.
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Guy on the turnstile at Wembley 1977 accepted my one pound and let me in. Just had to negotiate
the stewards at a second checkpoint before getting onto the terraces.
 
TCWNS1872 said:
Maybe its me, but I detected an almost neo-marxist flavour to it as though it was condoned behaviour despite the headline. I’m probably looking for something that isn’t there right enough, but the broadsheets are becoming more ideologically polarised as the weeks go by.

Moderate journalism is a dying, if not dead, species these days imho.
Click to expand...

I think if anyone is ideologically polarised, it's a guy who reads an article about guys sneaking into a game of football and then types the words, "I detected an almost neo-Marxist flavour to it." Probably my favourite ever line I've read on this website.
 
This ' jib ' has gone on for as long as I can remember, in fact the scouses were famous for it during the 70s,80s. Bribing stewards has also been going on for years and not just at the football, it's common place at horse racing where punters will pay stewards to let them into a better section of the race course.
 
With the reduced capacity people knew there were going to be 30k empty spaces, and before considering the rights and wrongs of those involved, this was inevitable. The powers that be apparently failed to recognise this and went in cheap handed on security. They are to blame for this chaos.
 
london_bluenose said:
I was surprised by how it all transpired on Sunday.

I have done work at Wembley for much of the past couple of years and it is a very well run stadium with a very diligent and professional delivery team. I've sat in loads of pre-match briefing meetings and the attention to detail is very high. I wasn't at the stadium on Sunday but clearly lots of things went badly wrong.

The policing operation was insufficient and the pre-match intelligence failed, because nobody had picked up on these large scale plans to break into the stadium. Then you add in the unprecedented numbers. There were external ticket cordons and checks but these were overwhelmed by the size of the crowd.

I was inside the stadium for the semi final against Denmark and it was boisterous and crowded outside even for that game, but Sunday was a different level in terms of the numbers and the behaviour of the crowd.

Saw an email yesterday from the stadium director which talked of facing an onslaught for over 6 hours, wave after wave of attempts to breach the stadium.
Click to expand...
You'd think that the Met. should've anticipated every scenario and put plans in action. I feel for the stewards involved because there was no way they were ever going to stop that.
 
ClockworkOrange said:
I think if anyone is ideologically polarised, it's a guy who reads an article about guys sneaking into a game of football and then types the words, "I detected an almost neo-Marxist flavour to it." Probably my favourite ever line I've read on this website.
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See post #36. :D
 
Two of us went to the semi final,Spain v Italy last week.
At the first security check (covid and ID) we were simply waved through not asked for either.
At the second security check I got searched but my other half just got waved through.
I never saw any police,it was all stewards/students most standing around doing nothing.
They also have loads of volunteers (with Euro 2020 bibs on) but they didn’t seem to have much to do,just standing about.We went in the ground around 6pm and it was a shambles even then.
 
Mondraker said:
Clearly common decency no longer exists.

Entitlement is a foreign concept to me it really is.

Pablo and friends sound like cunts.
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Italics

Conundrum. Would Maggie secretly applaud their ingenuity, resourcefulness and self-starter attitude whilst publicly decrying their wilful, blatant disregard for law and order?

Bold

Possibly a tad harsh, but I hear you generally speaking.

I feel guilty about being lifted over at numerous games when I was a kid now. :(:p
 
I’ve seen estimates that 250k people were in the vicinity of the stadium on the day. If the authorities haven’t properly planned for that situation and the obvious problems it will cause, the end result is chaos.

There was a COVID check at every Wembley game but that meant nothing as there’s no actual proof of an LFT being done, it’s down to the honestly of the individual.

There was a pre turnstile check of tickets which saw the steward activate your ticket but there was no control of the numbers approaching these areas meaning they could easily be overrun. Get through that and a double-shuffle on the turnstile gets you in. Stewards should then have checked your ticket as you went up the stairwell but again they couldn’t look at everyone’s ticket if loads of people came in at once
 
Was at Wembley on Sunday. Defiantly badly organised, I had a ticket and didn’t even get checked until the last turnstile. Would have been easy to jib in, saw loads of it happening.

After the game on Wembley Way was a shambles too. 2 hours it took to get from the stadium to the station.
 
Terry Monroe 8&1/4 said:
I remember that the Scottish fans got into Wembley by climbing the towers using scarfs tied together and get pulled up and through an opening like a window Sunday papers headlines lol
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Do what you need to do. If I was standing without a ticket and a door opened and a load of folk ran through, I’d be extremely tempted to join them. No need for the violence that pursued.
 
Aragorn said:
A policeman on the radio was saying, the reason for a small police presence inside the ground was because Wembley wouldn't pay for more, relying instead on a private security company, who didn't have the numbers required so used other firms, who employed mainly students on the minimum wage.

In no way were these youngsters going to be able to do the job of the police, hence the fighting, guys getting in without tickets etc

Why the powers that be didn't just step in and foot the bill i have no idea...It will come back and bite the football authorities big time as reading reports of the whole debacle at Wembley from the European press, nobody has a good word to say about how the whole thing was organised.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't the game have been held under UEFA's jurisdiction, so all security arrangements are their responsibility? UEFA probably thought they know best about everything, as per normal.

The reason originally given for no fans at the Scottish Cup Final was that Hampden would be "under Uefa event control from 14 May" as in the article below.
www.bbc.co.uk

No fan return for Scottish Cup final

There will be no fans inside Hampden Park for next month's Scottish Cup final because Uefa will have started work ahead of the Euro 2020 finals.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
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