The Stuttgart police have respondend to criticism from Belgium coach Domenic Tedesco and said the Belgians were to blame for their late arrival at the Euro 2024 game against Ukraine on Wednesday.
"The Belgian team and (European football ruling body) UEFA had been informed by the police in advance 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 Stuttgarter Nachrichten and Stuttgarter Zeitung newspapers.
After the game, Tedesco complained about the difficult circumstances of the journey.
"It took one hour to come from the hotel with a police escort. The road was completely free, but they slowed down to 20-25 kilometres per hour. Every traffic light was red. I had two minutes to make a preparation talk and we had to reduce the warm-up. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable," he said after his team qualified to the last 16.
Belz said that from police's 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 the bus speed had to be temporarily reduced to respect the demanded time gap between the arrivals of the two teams involved in the game.
The Belgians "set the stage for the late arrival themselves by insisting on the 40-minute travel time."