The Metropolitan Police arrived too late to stop the “carnage and chaos” that marred the Euro 2020 final at Wembley, a new Netflix documentary claims.
The Final: Attack on Wembley is the inside story of how “mayhem took over with scenes of drunkenness and drug-taking” before, during and after England’s defeat to Italy in 2021, when 19 police officers were injured and 85 people arrested.
And this feature-length documentary, which will be released on Netflix on 8 May, shows that organisers on the day had to try and summon police support earlier than planned because of fears that thousands of ticketless fans were going to storm Wembley.
“The story was becoming this really scene of carnage and chaos. Bottles and cans crashing down all around,” says Christopher Whyte, Brent Council’s director of environment and leisure.
“We were having to create a very impromptu medical station outside the Brent Civic Centre.
“I’ve got very vivid memories of seeing glass injuries. There’s blood and bandages and people frantically trying to give people the care that they needed. It did resemble a bit of a war zone.”
The main deployment of police was supposed to arrive at Wembley five hours before the 8pm kick-off, with more resource instead being directed towards fan zones in central London.
But news that Covid restrictions had restricted capacity in the stadium, meaning there would be more than 20,000 empty seats, created what Baroness Casey called a “perfect storm” in her independent report into the unrest.
Whyte added: “Their [the police’s] focus, their deployment, did have a central London lens to it. But the reality on the day of the final was that those pressures started to emerge within the Wembley area.
“The big fear was that the ticketless fans were now on the doorstep of the stadium, and you’ve got more people turning up, so we needed police support much sooner.
“The message got through to the police that we needed the support sooner and they were able to bring teams on the ground before 3pm.
“The difficulty that we had was that a lot of those problems and bad behaviours had already become established and taken hold.
“This was a very dense crowd in a very compact area that was completely off its face.”
In 2021, Commander Rachel Williams of the Metropolitan Police issued an apology for what happened on the day.
“I am deeply sorry that so many people who came to enjoy a day of football were met with unacceptable scenes of disorder,” Williams said.
“This moment of national significance was tarnished by groups of ticketless, anti-social and thuggish football fans who were intent on causing disorder and committing criminal acts.
“We regret that we were not able to do more to prevent those scenes unfolding.”
England were forced to play their next competitive home game behind closed doors as punishment from Uefa. However, Euro 2028 was still partially awarded to England, as well as this year’s Champions League final.
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