Focus on safety and security at annual conference

Over 400 people will today gather for the UEFA Safety & Security Conference at the Hilton Bomonti Hotel in Istanbul, Türkiye. Together, they include the 55 UEFA member associations, the clubs playing in UEFA’s top European competitions and major football policing bodies, and work hand in hand with UEFA’s Safety and Security Operations Unit to provide a safe, secure, and welcoming environment throughout the football season.

Under the theme of "Sharing the Stage", this year’s conference will remind attendees that they all share the same goals and purpose, even after two long years of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many participants have not been in the same room since the last edition in Athens in September 2019.

Preparing for the season

The UEFA Safety & Security Conference usually meets annually just before the start of the football season with the objective of sharing best practices, exchanging information between club security officers and police and preparing for what lies ahead.

Attendees include every security officer from every club that has qualified for the group stage of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League competitions, together with national association security officers and National Football Information Points (NFIPs) from all UEFA member associations. In addition, UEFA invites other guests and representatives of European football fan organisations.

Panel debates

Samantha Johnson, an experienced TV journalist based in Istanbul, will moderate the conference’s panel discussions. These will cover a range of topics, including new developments in crowd behaviour since the end of the pandemic, how to assess crowd behaviour and its mood swings, and which best practices to maintain. A packed agenda also includes an in-depth review of security operations at UEFA’s first-ever Europa Conference League final, staged in Tirana in May.

The panel will also identify positive outcomes from the pandemic, in particular how technologies and management information systems were adapted to strengthen safety and security.

The discussions around the relevant topics will provide the audience with the latest pieces of information, trends, and best practices that will prove useful to clubs and associations in their preparations for this season's UEFA competitions.