Rebekah Vardy says she feared for her life after getting tear-gassed before the England match in Marseilles
Wife of England striker Jamie Vardy was caught up in clashes with Russian hooligans
WAG Rebekah Vardy said she “feared for her life” when she was tear-gassed during the violent clash between football fans and police ahead of Saturday’s match.
The wife of England footballer Jamie was caught in the horrifying scenes surrounding the England V Russia game at Euro 2016.
She told Good Morning Britain she didn’t witness any first-hand violence from hooligans but criticised how the French police and security handled the stadium drama.
“We had just been out for some food in the centre of Marseille and [we] came out and there were quite a few England fans there - not causing any trouble, singing, the atmosphere was calm, there was no fighting, there was no violence,” she said.
The England striker’s wife said officers fired tear gas into crowds of people who were running for their lives.
She added: “There were a couple of photographers outside and [they] said, ‘come on, we need to move, there's a few issues that are being caused in the centre.’
“They took us further towards where the main square was and at that point you could see police firing tear gas into crowds that were practically running and feared for their lives.
“At that point still I never witnessed any first-hand violence from any of the fans that were in the vicinity of where I was.”
Speaking about being tear-gassed, she said: “I feared for my life. It was sheer terror that's the only way I could describe it.
“They'd closed the main exit points for the majority of fans to gain access to the perimeter of the stadium which ultimately meant people were trying to clamber over fences, there were small children climbing up trees, there were women crying, it was a scary scene.”
On the security and organisation of the match, Rebekah said: "To be honest the security actually in the stadium was shocking, it took us ages to get through the two security checkpoints because they didn't open the gates until near enough kick-off and at that point the crowds were so intense they didn't have enough manpower to deal with the situation. Even my bags weren't checked so it's not a surprise that the Russians managed to get fireworks and goodness knows what else through security.”
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