Soccer has seen a few deaths and injuries when rival clubs collide, this one was historic. The incident at the Haysel Stadium was devestating and is reported to be the worst case of Football Hooliganism to date.
It was 1985, a few years prior to the horrific 1989 soccer disaster at Hillsboroughand one the reasons why the security measures at Hillsborough caused so many deaths. After the deaths at Heysal, tighter security measures went into place. Those measures were later blamed for Hillsborough.
Heysal and Hillsborough were two of the worst soccer disasters of all time and unfortunately the Liverpool team was present at both. Unlike Hillsborough, the fans at Heysal were directly responsible.
From a Wike article about the football disaster:
Approximately an hour before the scheduled kick-off time a group of supporters of English Liverpool F.C. breached a fence separating them from rival supporters of Juventus F.C. and charged at and attacked the Italian supporters. The Juventus fans retreated, putting pressure on a dilapidated retaining wall, which collapsed away from them. The crush of fans against the wall and its collapse led to many deaths and hundreds of injuries. The game was played despite the disaster in order to prevent further violence.
The tragedy resulted in all English football clubs being placed under an indefinite ban by UEFA from all European competitions (lifted in 1990-91), with Liverpool F.C. being excluded for an additional year and a number of Liverpool fans prosecuted for manslaughter. The disaster has been called "the darkest hour in the history of the UEFA competitions."
At around 7PM the fans became aggited as rival sides only a few yards apart traded words. Things started getting thrown accross the fence and very soon a group of Liverpool fans stormed the gate causing the Juventus fans to run for cover. Without a way out the Juventus fans ended up trapped against a wall. Both sides went a bit nuts and a confrontation occured. The sides through rocks, bottles and trash at each other withsomeone even firing a gun. The situation became chaos and when it was over 39 people lay dead and 600 were injured. What is a bit crazy is that the soccer game still went on.
The casualties were:
- Rocco Acerra (29)
- Bruno Balli (50)
- Alfons Bos
- Giancarlo Bruschera (21)
- Andrea Casula (11)
- Giovanni Casula (44)
- Nino Cerullo (24)
- Willy Chielens
- Giuseppina Conto (17)
- Dirk Daenecky
- Dionisio Fabbro (51)
- Jacques François
- Eugenio Gagliano (35)
- Francesco Galli (25)
- Giancarlo Gonnelli (20)
- Alberto Guarini (21)
- Giovacchino Landini (50)
- Roberto Lorentini (31)
- Barbara Lusci (58)
- Benjamin Lyon (14)
- Franco Martelli (22)
- Loris Messore (28)
- Gianni Mastroiaco (20)
- Sergio Bastino Mazzino (38)
- Luciano Rocco Papaluca (38)
- Luigi Pidone (31)
- Benito Pistolato (50)
- Patrick Radcliffe
- Domenico Ragazzi (44)
- Antonio Ragnanese (49)
- Claude Robert
- Mario Ronchi (43)
- Domenico Russo (28)
- Tarcisio Salvi (49)
- Gianfranco Sarto (47)
- Amedeo Giuseppe Spolaore (55)
- Mario Spanu (41)
- Tarcisio Venturin (23)
- Jean Michel Walla
- Claudio Zavaroni (28)
The British police undertook a thorough investigation to bring to justice the perpetrators. Some 17 minutes of film and many still photographs were examined. TV Eye produced an hour-long programme featuring the footage and the British press also published the photographs.
By the way, Juventus won the match 1-0
The blame for the deaths and incident was placed on Liverpool fans, there was no official inquiry but English clubs were banned from UEFA Competition for some years.
There were 27 arrests on suspicion of manslaughter – the only extraditable offence applicable to events at Heysel. The majority of these people were from Merseyside. Some of these people had previous convictions for football-related violence. In 1989, after a 5-month trial in Belgium, fourteen Liverpool fans were given 3-year sentences for involuntary manslaughter.[15] Half the terms were suspended and it is unclear how many served their sentences.