Newlywed Rebekah Vardy has opened up about the reality of violence at the Euro games, saying that there’s definitely room for improvement with the security standards.
34-year-old Rebekah explained on Good Morning Britain that she “feared for [her] life” on Saturday night as violence kicked off in France after the England VS Russia game, with tear-gas being used by police to try and disperse the crowds of football fans.
She to hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid:
““We had just been out for some food in the centre of Marseille and [we] came out and there were quite a few England fans there - not causing any trouble, singing, the atmosphere was calm, there was no fighting, there was no violence.
“There were a couple of photographers outside and [they] said, ‘come on, we need to move, there's a few issues that are being caused in the centre.’
“They took us further towards where the main square was and at that point you could see police firing tear gas into crowds that were practically running and feared for their lives.
“At that point still I never witnessed any first-hand violence from any of the fans that were in the vicinity of where I was.”
Rebekah, who married Leicester City and England footballer back in May this year, told how the experience of being tear-gassed made her fear for her life. She described the traumatizing experience as follows.
“I feared for my life. It was sheer terror that's the only way I could describe it.
“They'd closed the main exit points for the majority of fans to gain access to the perimeter of the stadium which ultimately meant people were trying to clamber over fences, there were small children climbing up trees, there were women crying, it was a scary scene.”
After the chaotic and violent scenes on Saturday night, UEFA has threatened to disqualify both teams, and the French authorities has detained 63 people.
Police have been given more power in reaction to the incident, meaning they can ban alcohol nearby stadiums.
But Rebekah has said that in her opinion, security needs a massive step up to stop further outbreaks of violence.
She told:
“To be honest the security actually in the stadium was shocking, it took us ages to get through the two security checkpoints because they didn't open the gates until near enough kick-off and at that point the crowds were so intense they didn't have enough manpower to deal with the situation.
“Even my bags weren't checked so it's not a surprise that the Russians managed to get fireworks and goodness knows what else through security.”
Since her appearance on the show, haters have hit out at Rebekah's version of events on Twitter, causing the WAG to defend herself in series of tweets.
While some doubted she was in the crowd, as a VIP guest, others said she downplayed the English violence on purpose.
She wrote:
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