Safeguarding & duty of care in sport: an own goal?

• High-profile sporting events attract the same general health and safety considerations as all public events, but they also carry additional event-specific, often significant, risk factors.
• How do you reconcile vicarious liability and control when no clear boundaries exist?

The evening of 11 July 2021 should have been an occasion of immense national pride as England played Italy in the Euro 2020 Final at Wembley. Instead, we watched, appalled, as ticketless thugs stormed the stadium, heaping shame and embarrassment on the nation.

It is inevitable that questions would be asked in the wake of these events. After all, when things don’t go to plan, fingers are pointed. Stuck in the middle is the thin yellow line of stewards who have been left asking who was protecting them, and whether the independent review that has been commissioned by the Football Association