Despite Arsenal maintaining a perfect record in the Champions League this season, many Gooners have returned from European away trips with concerns about their matchday experience. Complaints following the fixture against Inter Milan have highlighted issues that go beyond results on the pitch and instead focus on supporter treatment and stadium arrangements.
Safety procedures versus supporter experience
Several travelling fans have pointed to being escorted to the away section under heavy security and then being required to remain in place after the final whistle until the home crowd has dispersed. While this practice is common across European football, it has still caused frustration. Every supporter has the right to feel safe inside a stadium, and protective measures, including netting, are often a response to past incidents involving missiles being thrown. In that context, safety must always take priority over an uninterrupted view from a seat.
Recent examples of crowd disorder elsewhere, including fans throwing chairs at each other during what was meant to be a celebration of African football, underline why such precautions exist. Inter Milan, along with AC Milan, may also have legitimate health and safety reasons for positioning away fans high in the stadium. If this layout allows stewards to better manage risk, then it is understandable that it takes precedence over comfort.
Fairness, atmosphere and UEFA responsibility
However, problems arise when safety measures appear to drift into competitive advantage. Reports of away fans being delayed entry until kick off, then required to locate seats far from the pitch, inevitably affect the atmosphere. In elite football, marginal gains matter, and diminishing away support can influence the overall feel of a tie.
Supporters pay significant sums to follow their teams and are entitled to a reasonable standard. While fans will accept poor views at older grounds due to structural limitations, frustration grows when arrangements seem designed to favour the home side. English clubs are not without blame either, with some long criticised for marginalising away support.
UEFA has a responsibility to ensure fairness across all ties. In two-legged knockout football, even supporter treatment can play a role. Arsenal are widely regarded as acting with class, and the Emirates offers few genuinely poor seats. Perhaps it is time for football’s governing bodies to examine whether away fan arrangements truly strike the right balance between safety, fairness and respect.
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Not a safety concern but just a general question, I never understood why on champions league nights on the continent you can sit in your seat with a beer while in England you are not allowed, why is this?
If will be respective laws by each nation
Allot of acts changed in the 80’s due to fans behaviour
Strange how on Premier league days they sell beer and on champions league nights they don’t, doesn’t make any sense and will just make fans drink more before they get into the stadium.
I actually agree with the rule
I would ban alcohol from stadiums period
So would you ban alcohol from every part of the stadiums ?
Yeah
Pay £25k a season for the Diamond Club (they have pay for 3 years to join the Diamond Club) and you can’t have an alcoholic drink with your Michelin Star meal, not sure those people are going to be happy. Or the people who have Boxes.
Well if they can’t go a couple of hours without a drink that is sad
Also blame the cowards who misbehave
Diamond Club and people in the Boxes aren’t there for a couple of hours.
Having a meal cooked by a Michelin Star chef and not allowed a glass of wine…. unbelievable.
Blame the cowards mate
And don’t care if your there for 5 hours
If you can’t cope 5 hours without alcohol that’s sad
Maybe it’s sad for you, but I like a nice glass of red wine with a lovely meal.
BTW, we are not mates.
Oh yeah I forgot lol
Habit
Hardly surprising that you forgot 🙄
It’s where I’m fom
Say your getting off a bus you say cheers mate / bud / etc
Your the only person who takes it literally lol
Nah, I just say thank you 😁
Lol
What’s so funny 🙅♂️
Just was a funny response
We are on the same side on this one Mr Drier. When I went a few months ago to the game against Athens the one where Gyok knocked it in with his balls, I had lots of cocktails. I didn’t realise in the pleb area’s you are not allowed any alcohol on Euro night whilst in the nice rooms they give us alcohol for free! Is that true! If people in our party don’t want their free cocktail I mindsweep them.
Maybe I won’t laugh at all thinking about it. That the rest of you downstairs not enjoying a drink too doesn’t seem right to me! Liverpool and Chelsea have done mindless hoolygunism in Europe, and we’ve all got to pay for their crimes. Well nearly all. That is stupid. All Arsenal fans do is go to away places to be nice to people, not like Liverpool and Chelsea crews and altras.
So would I. If you can’t go to a football match and last around two hours without a drink, it’s a sad state you’re in.
And it helps to keep fans in their seats, instead of annoyingly going for a pee every ten minutes or so.
That’s the most annoying part. I’m not against people enjoying a drink and I accept it’s part of the social side But getting up and down like a yo yo during a game is bloody infuriating as a row of people have to get up and it obstructs what’s going on.
Yeah mate
Certainly shouldn’t be an issue
I’ve watched The Arsenal in Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and France and I can honestly say that me and my mates were treated really well in all of those countries apart from France
Regarding seating in the upper tier, especially in Milan, I would say that came about due to a scooter being dropped on the Sampdoria fans in ’94 resulting in the death of on of their fans iirc.
Maybe not being nice to anybody even themselves is important part of French culture, and not washing or using deodorant but eating lots of garlic and frog and stirring persil in the food is all part of it. And a reason they lost so many battles by thoughtlessly launching surprise attacks from down wind.
Not Nice! Like French cuisine. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing? That was a French Chef. Running that kitchen. Don’t know if this helps? But I agree with you.
Moon Girl, re an earlier comment of yours (there’s no reply link). Drinks are served in all parts of the stadium regardless of the customer’s class or status, although I don’t know if the bars remain open during play.
My Apologise. From discussion I was under impression it’s different for Euro competition and as you see that idea made me cross I was getting drunk on free booze and my JA friends couldn’t even buy some in the pleb areas.
There’s no doubt safety should be the priority, but it all boils down to the local authorities and their culture.
It is these local authorities and not necessarily the state that used these methods of excessive force.
Probably one of the best way to address this long standing monster, is passing regulation of placing away fans at the pitch side, not only would managing the away fans easier but it could enhance the atmosphere in the arena
Blame the cowards mate
And don’t care if your there for 5 hours
If you can’t cope 5 hours without alcohol that’s sad
As a kid I remembered, a Liverpool Englishman telling my father, back home they goes to the pup first before a match, which is a part of their tradition and matchday culture, he said they would gather and drink for hours before leaving for a game.
I still find it strange as not all persons can remain sober after the first glass of alcohol, and probably there lays the problem
Unfortunately mate ask your day ( especially in the 80’s ) how some English fans behaved , hence the change of laws in stadiums
Fans can’t be trusted I’m afraid
Didn’t an Arsenal fan last season or the season before attack Roy Keane ?
Until you change that attitude, encouraging drinking doesn’t help.
Yes Gunsmoke, it’s part of the culture. Travelling up to London for the game, I would get there a few of hours before kick off to meet my mates in the pub. These mates come from all over England and not one of us would be drunk. We just drunk sensibly. Even when we went to watch The Arsenal aboard, spending a few days in a city, we would pace ourselves.