It was announced in October that Wembley will host a third football Euros final in seven years, after UK and Ireland were awarded the Men’s Euro 2028 tournament host rights. Have lessons been learned from a security perspective since the disastrous events of the Euro 2020 final, however, when 2,000 unruly fans gained forced entry into the stadium?
Mithun Thekkumbadan, Associate Security Consultant at Buro Happold
Here, Mithun Thekkumbadan, Associate Security Consultant at Buro Happold, takes a timely look at the learnings from the independent review of that day. Mithun details the technical security takeaways from the Casey Report for stadia, highlighting the challenges of balancing emergency egress and access control, as well as summarising the security upgrades the stadium has undergone since.
On Sunday 11 July 2021, England hosted Italy at Wembley stadium for the Euro 2020 final.
It was meant to be an occasion of national pride, showcasing the very best England had to offer, both from a footballing and organisational perspective. The country as a whole was slowly recovering from the shocks of the pandemic and “Euro Sunday” was the perfect opportunity for the nation to join in celebration.
However, what occurred was a shocking set of events from a mob of unruly and riotous English football fans, which tarnished the reputation of the Football Association (FA) and the country.
In the weeks following, the FA commissioned Baroness Casey to conduct an independent review of the events that took place on that day. Her report, titled “An independent Review of events surrounding the UEFA Euro 2020 Final ‘Euro Sunday’ at Wembley”, was published in December 2021.
The report offers detailed insight into critical events. It also highlighted to security professionals and concerned football fans alike, the causality of a “perfect storm” of circumstances on security and safety in stadia.
The findings of the Casey Report form the basis of this article, where we will primarily focus on technical security aspects, such as access control & safe egress.
The report describes in forensic detail how English fans breached the stadium perimeter and were able to gain access into the stands. The Review analysed the lead up to the event, chronology on the day and provides operational detail undertaken by the various stakeholders.
The Review team had access to thousands of hours of Video Surveillance System (VSS) footage, from within and external to the stadium. They also conducted detailed surveys and interviews with various stakeholders including Brent City Council (BCC), Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Wembley fans and others, producing supplementary independent reports attached as appendices. These formed the evidentiary basis of the Review.
The Review made a total of eight recommendations. Five for national consideration, aimed primarily at the government and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) and three for the FA, Wembley and key partners.
As noted previously, the Review described the conditions that day as a “perfect storm” of circumstances, these were:
The Review noted that of the roughly 100,000 people that visited Wembley that day, 2,000 gained forced entry into the stadium without any valid tickets.
The report concluded that were 17 mass breaches over a period of 90 minutes before kick-off until the penalty shootout.
Eight of these breaches were successfully repelled by stewards and others such as the MPS. The main breaches into the stadium were through the disabled gates and through the illegal use of the emergency egress doors.
The Casey Report is very thorough in its analysis of “Euro Sunday”. Broadly, the events, responses and measures can be categorised into three security factors:
Figure 1: Security factors on “Euro Sunday”
The ‘technical’ point shall be the key focus of this article, specifically with regards to physical access control on the perimeter of the stadium.
The Review identified three types of mass perimeter breaches into the stadium, these were:
Figure 2: Disabled pass gate at Gate H, where 200 people broke through
Finally, there were also breaches at the full height turnstiles where individuals tailgated validated ticket holders. This however was not considered as a mass breach.
It is clear from the analysis, that the majority of the mass breaches occurred at the final emergency egress doors. At Wembley, these doors were fitted with electromagnetic locks, which provided security staff a means of access control and remote release. However, in the event of an emergency, and for safety reasons, typically all access control on final emergency egress doors should be released.
These differing aims of safety and security pose a tough dilemma for both security designers and building operators.
Crowd safety is paramount at large public gatherings either indoors or outdoors. However, there is always a fine balance to be achieved between security and safety.
If a generic stadium or indoor arena is used as an example, balancing access control and emergency egress could be achieved by electronically locking the emergency egress doors. These doors should release in the event of a confirmed emergency or fire, but restricts any individual from engaging the panic bar in non-emergency situations.
There is also a means by which a timed delay can be introduced into this operation. This would buy the security safety operator valuable seconds or minutes to make a key decision.
Design for delayed egress doors for sports venues are dictated by the British standard BS EN 13637 and by the SGSA Green guide (6th Edition).
While both provide technical and operational guidance on how to safely secure egress doors. There are subtle differences between the two, as shown in the figure below.
Figure 3 Technical and operational comparison of British standard for delayed egress and the Green guide
The primary difference is the time delay requirement, either 15 or 180 seconds, contained within BS EN 13637. The second differentiation is the requirement for a visual countdown timer/indicator, when a delayed egress element (panic bar or green break glass unit) is initiated.
As noted in the table, there are additional technological solutions which can aid operators. These include utilising video surveillance devices with video analytics modules, such as sterile zone and directional movement detection.
These solutions have similar goals, which provide the operator with vital visual and behavioural intelligence, prior to making an informed decision on crowd safety and security.
If we look at Wembley stadium today, there have been several recent security upgrades. These include:
It is important to emphasise that individual technological and physical upgrades, such as those mentioned above, should not be considered in isolation. It is clear from the Review that, the heroes on “Euro Sunday” were the well-trained and competent stadium operations teams and police staff. They utilised various means to aid them making vital decisions, which resulted in the containment of breaches into the stadium.
UEFA have recently awarded the associations of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland to jointly host the Euro 2028 tournament. 10 stadia in total would host the 51 games.
It is imperative that stadium directors and security managers implement the hard lessons learnt from the Casey review. This will include striking the right balance between safety and security, both technically and operationally.
Wembley have learnt these hard lessons and are in a better state of preparedness for the 2028 Euros than they were two years ago.
For access control, it is evident that a standardised, proactive approach to design and operation of stadium egress doors should be created and adopted across all stadia. This would supersede the current bespoke and reactive approach to access controlling and operating egress doors.
The successful application of a standardised solution will have a massive impact on stadium security designs and operations in the future.
About the author
Mithun Thekkumbadan is an Associate Security Consultant at Buro Happold, the global engineering design and advisory practice headquartered in the UK and operating across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Mithun is a member of the Register of Security Engineers and Specialists (RSES), and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Mithun joined Buro Happold in 2013 after gaining a Master’s degree in Electronic Systems with Communications from Warwick University. He has worked on more than 60 security projects globally, including security designs of large stadia both nationally and internationally.
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