Stuttgart police have responded to criticism from Belgian 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 were informed in advance by the police that a travel time of 40 minutes was not sufficient. The police suggested a travel time of 60 minutes. This was rejected by the Belgian Football Association, police spokesman Frank Belz told the newspapers Stuttgarter Nachrichten and Stuttgarter Zeitung.
After the match, Tedesco complained about the difficult conditions of the trip.
“It took an hour to get from the hotel under a police escort. The road was completely clear, but they were driving at 20-25 kilometers per hour. Every traffic light was red. I had two minutes to have a preparatory conversation 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 the police point of view “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 speed of the bus had to be temporarily reduced to respect the required time difference between the arrivals of the two teams involved in the match.
The Belgians “themselves paved the way for the late arrival by insisting on the 40-minute travel time.”
