JUSTICE FOR HEYSEL CAMPAIGN 2006

JUSTICE FOR HEYSEL 2006 CAMPAIGN

The Heysel Stadium disaster took place at the 1985 football European Cup final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.

Events
There has never been an official inquiry into the causes of the disaster, but the main events are well established.

On May 29, 1985, Liverpool played Juventus in the European Cup final. The Belgian authorities had allocated a section of the ground to neutral fans. This was an idea opposed by Liverpool and Juventus, as it would easily provide an arena for fans of both clubs to obtain tickets from ticket and travel agencies or from ticket touts outside the ground and thus evade measures designed to segregate the fans of both clubs. Indeed, Brussels has a large Italian community, and many expatriate Juventus fans bought tickets in the section allocated to "neutral" supporters. Also, many felt the ground was patently unsafe for football. Heysel had been built in 1930 and its terraces were literally crumbling before the Final.

A flimsy wire fence had been erected to separate the Liverpool fans from the neutral area. A contingent of Liverpool fans began to stampede towards the Juventus fans in the neutral area in a familiar action taken by English football supporters. But the Juventus supporters in the neutral section, many middle-class expatriates, were unaware of English terrace culture. They panicked and fled, leading to the collapse of a retaining wall. In the chaos that ensued many Juventus fans were trampled or crushed, resulting in the death of 39 people (32 Italians, 4 Belgians, two Frenchmen and an Irishman). Meanwhile, the police stood by, clearly confused and unable to agree on a plan for action, worsening the situation.

Despite the scale of the disaster, it was felt that abandoning the game risked inciting further trouble, and the match eventually kicked off. Juventus won 1-0 with a controversial penalty, scored by Michel Platini.

Aftermath
As a direct result of this event, The Football League, perhaps in a pre-emptive move to avoid heavier punishment from UEFA, banned Liverpool from participating in European competition indefinitely, and all other English clubs, including League champions Everton, for five years. Liverpool's ban was eventually set to expire after ten years, later reduced to six.

The Heysel stadium itself has since been completely rebuilt, and is now called the King Baudouin Stadium.

During the Euro 2000, all the members of the Italian team left flowers on the site, in honour to the dead fans of Juventus.

Juventus and Liverpool were drawn together in the quarterfinals of the 2005 Champions League. This match took place in the 20th anniversary year of the tragedy, and was the first time the clubs had met in a match since Heysel. Liverpool won the first leg of the encounter at home 2-1 with goals by Sami Hyypiд and Luis Garcia. The second leg, played in Turin, ended goalless, sending Liverpool through to the semifinals with a 2-1 aggregate victory. By the end of the match, Juventus fans turned their anger towards their own team in the form of chants and boos.

Both matches were marred by minor problems, despite many measures taken to stop violence and anti-social behaviour during the 2005 matches, including public expressions of forgiveness and reconcilliation between major figures in the two clubs. However, these problems were milder than feared by the authorities: Only 50 Juventus supporters turned their backs on a banner of forgiveness and friendship brought into Anfield Stadium before the first leg; soon before the second leg, a Liverpool supporter was assaulted in a bar in Turin by a gang of Juventus supporters; and there was some minor throwing of missiles by a small number of fans from both clubs minutes before kick-off of the second leg.

References in pop culture
The disaster was the subject of a song titled "38" by Revolting Cocks.

The novel Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby also makes reference to the disaster.

Composer Michael Nyman made a song called 'Memorial' which was originally part of a larger work of the same name written in 1985 in memory of the Juventus fans who died at Heysel Stadium.

We think that justice should be done and Liverpool FC banned from all competitions, in England, Europe and the world. They clearly havn't learnt their lesson from the 6 year ban as they are still attacking people everywhere they go to this day.
We think UEFA and the FA should reconsider their original indefinite ban of the club from European competitions and even ban them from domestic cups to.