Heysel Stadium disaster
The game was played despite the pre-match incidents by authorities and organizers' joint decision for public policy doctrine reasons[9] after a state of siege was declared in the city,[10] with Juventus winning 1–0.
[11] 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,[12][13][14] and 14 Liverpool fans were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.
[15] 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.
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.
[21] At the time, Belgium already had a large Italian community; many expatriate Juventus fans from Brussels, Liège and Charleroi bought Section Z tickets.
Reportedly, Liverpool fans were still smarting from being attacked by Roma ultras at the 1984 European Cup final and placed next to what amounted to another Juventus section heightened tensions before the match.
[9] This decision was jointly made by UEFA officials, the Italian, English and Belgian national associations, the country's Ministry of Interior led by local Premier Wilfried Martens, Brussels Mayor Hervé Brouhon, and the city's police force, despite the scale of the disaster, the state of siege in the City of Brussels consequently declared by the Belgian government[10] and Juventus expressed concerns about the match proceeding.
[29][28] After the captains of both sides spoke to the crowd and appealed for calm,[30] the players took the field knowing that people had died.
[21] Juventus won the match 1–0 thanks to a penalty scored by Platini, which was awarded by the Swiss referee, Daina, for a foul against Zbigniew Boniek.
[31] 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.
[21] The police allowed Liverpool's bus to drive directly onto the tarmac at Brussels Airport to prevent potential disturbances at the terminal.
Serious progress on legal banning orders preventing foreign travel to matches was arguably not made until the violence involving England fans (allegedly mainly involving neo-Nazi groups, such as Combat 18) at a match against Ireland on 15 February 1995 and violent scenes at the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
[40][41] The main reforms to English stadiums came after the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989, which ultimately resulted in the death of 97 Liverpool fans.
All-seater stadiums became a requirement for clubs in the top two divisions while pitch-side fencing was removed and closed-circuit cameras became widespread.
On 28 August 1995 the new stadium welcomed the return of football to Heysel in the form of a friendly match between Belgium and Germany.
A total of 34 people were arrested and questioned with 26 Liverpool fans being charged with manslaughter—the only extraditable offence applicable to events at Heysel.
Initially, all were held at a Belgian prison, but, over the subsequent months, judges permitted their release as the start of the trial was further delayed.
The trial eventually began in October 1988, with three Belgians also standing trial for their role in the disaster: Albert Roosens, the head of the Belgian Football Association, for allowing tickets for the Liverpool section of the stadium to be sold to Juventus fans; and two police chiefs—Michel Kensier and Johan Mahieu—who were in charge of policing at the stadium that night.
In April 1989, fourteen fans were convicted and given three-year sentences, half of which were suspended for five years, allowing them to return to the UK.
According to former Liverpool striker Ian Rush, who signed with Juventus a year later, he saw pronounced improvement in the institutional relationships between both the clubs and their fans during his career in Italy.
The places vacated by English clubs in the UEFA Cup were reallocated to the best countries who would usually only have two spots in the competition—countries ranked between ninth and twenty-first.
In the meantime, many other clubs missed out on a place in the UEFA Cup due to the return of English clubs to European competitions only being gradual—in 1990, the league had no UEFA coefficient points used to calculate the number of teams, and even though Manchester United won the Cup Winners' Cup in the first season of returning in 1990–91, it took several more years for England to win back the points to the previous level, due to the coefficient being calculated over a five-year period and there being a one-year delay between the publication of the rankings and their impact on club allocation.
Liverpool's additional year of exclusion from Europe meant that there was no English representation in the 1990–91 European Cup, as they were 1989–90 Football League First Division champions.
The teams who missed out on the 1991–92 UEFA Cup, for the same reason were Sheffield Wednesday, Crystal Palace, and Leeds United.
The monument is a sundial designed by French artist Patrick Rimoux and includes Italian and Belgian stone and the poem "Funeral Blues" by Englishman W. H. Auden to symbolise the sorrow of the three countries.
[64] On Wednesday 26 May 2010, a permanent plaque was unveiled on the Centenary Stand at Anfield to honour the Juventus fans who died 25 years earlier.
[65] On 12 November 2015, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), Juventus' representatives led by Mariella Scirea and J-Museum president Paolo Garimberti and members of the Italian victims association held a ceremony in front of the Heysel monument in King Baudouin Stadium for the 30th anniversary of the event.
[66] The following day, FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio announced the retirement of Squadra Azzurra's number 39 shirt prior to the friendly match between Italy and Belgium.
Before the first leg at Anfield, Liverpool fans held up placards to form a banner saying "amicizia" ("friendship" in Italian).
[69] In the return leg in Turin, Juventus fans displayed banners reading "Easy to speak, difficult to pardon: Murders and 15-4-89.
