Townsend: Fans must take some blame for the scenes in Athens, but UEFA must look at their policy, too

They were in an official secure area and didn't have a camera between them but had somehow overcome a strict accreditation pass checkpoint and travelled through an X-ray machine to get that far.

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Part of me admired their cheek, but their audacity was nothing compared to the horror stories I was hearing on the way home from Athens on Thursday.

Stories that you hope are not true: stories of Liverpool supporters stealing tickets from other Liverpool supporters who had paid for their seats at the European Cup Final.

These are fans famous for their loyalty and passion to the cause, forged partly by the football disasters of Heysel and Hillsborough.

Then there was a big Scouser, a lad who could clearly look after himself, but who talked of the overcrowding in the Liverpool section, comparing it to Hillsborough and talking of the fear of being crushed in powerful surges.

"If I fall over here, I'm in serious trouble," he recalled. Others talked of frightening experiences inside and around a stadium built for athletics and inadequate for a football match.

Fans should be allowed to join the party; I'm all for them being part of the action.

Supporters with a passion for their team will go to extraordinary lengths to watch them around the world, like those who follow the Republic of Ireland abroad.

With football in such great demand and cheap flights available on the internet, people will gamble in the hope they can beg for a ticket at the venue.

But at what point does common sense kick in and the individual takes responsibility for what happens next?

At what point does the supporter — in this case the Liverpool fan — think "I haven't got a ticket, so I'll find myself a bar or a big screen and enjoy it from there?"

That's what the Irish followers would do, that's what happened when Celtic took over Seville for the 2003 UEFA Cup Final against Porto.

Yet many in Liverpool colours decided: "I've got no ticket, but that's not going to stop me getting in."

At best, they were willing to take the place of a fellow supporter. At worst, they were placing the lives of others in danger. As a consequence of this attitude, fans with genuine tickets couldn't get in and some were bulldozed, baton-charged and battered instead of taking their place for the final.

And this was with a "soft" policing approach. Imagine how the police in Italy might have dealt with it.

UEFA, too, must look at their operation. Where were the fan parks and the big screens? Not enough of them. Was the venue big enough? No.

We're off to Moscow next year and the Luzhniki Stadium which holds 85,000. The Champions League Final, the showpiece game of the season, should not take part in a stadium with a capacity of less than 80,000.

If that means the Final being shared among four or five grounds, including the Nou Camp and Wembley, so what? The FA took the Cup Final to another country so that safety could be ensured and the maximum number of supporters could see the game at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

Michel Platini has to make sure this never happens again. He wants to revolutionise European football, but perhaps before that, he must make it his duty to ensure more tickets are available to ordinary supporters and to provide a suitable — and safe — venue where they can watch their team. We should look back on this experience as a lucky escape. I left Greece thinking what would have happened if Manchester United and Liverpool had been playing in that final. God help us if that had been the case.