Stuttgart police have responded to criticism from Belgium coach Domenic Tedesco, saying the Belgians were responsible for their late arrival at the Euro 2024 match against Ukraine on Wednesday.
“The Belgian team and (European football governing body) UEFA had been informed in advance by the police that a travel time of 40 minutes was not sufficient. The police proposed a travel time of 60 minutes. This was rejected by the Belgian Football Association,” police spokesman Frank Belz told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten and Stuttgarter Zeitung newspapers.
After the match, Tedesco complained about the difficult conditions of the journey.
“It took an hour to get from the hotel under a police escort. The road was completely clear, but they reduced speed to 20-25 kilometers per hour. Every traffic light was red. I had two minutes to get a preparatory talk and we had to shorten the warm-up. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable,” he said after his team qualified for the last sixteen.
Belz said that from a police perspective “nothing unusual happened during the escort of the Belgian bus” and that the bus left the team hotel three minutes late.
He explained that the bus speed had to be temporarily reduced to take into account the time required between the arrival of the two teams taking part in the match.
The Belgians “themselves paved the way for the late arrival by insisting on the 40-minute travel time.”
