Ignored and isolated: my nightmare in a wheelchair at the Champions League final

A s a wheelchair user who attended the Champions League final in Istanbul last weekend, it was probably the worst experience I’ve ever had at a stadium. And I’ve been kettled outside Wembley with drunk fans pushing past my mum and knocking her over.

When your team reach and win the Champions League final, you want to make memories from it. Unfortunately, Uefa created only nightmares. You have to question whether any thought was put in to considering the experience of disabled fans in the city during the planning process. Getting around Istanbul’s streets was difficult: dropped kerbs to help wheelchair users get across the road were, at best, more like ski slopes and, at worst, nonexistent.

Istanbul’s residents were incredibly helpful when it came to providing support with access and the modern metro system was fantastic and step-free – unlike London’s. Unfortunately Uefa said Manchester City’s fans could not use the system, even though it was a step-free route to the ground.

Although there were some accessible pathways in the pre-match fan park on the outskirts of the city, the route to the shop, say, to buy a programme was across uneven land and you had to stand in a queue for over 45 minutes to make a small purchase. But the queue to get on the bus to the stadium was well-managed for disabled fans.

At the stadium, the fan park could best be described as “independently impassable rubble” or, as one fan put it, “a bomb site”. It was an incredibly uneven surface I struggled to get over even with help from my mum. If I had stopped at any point, it would have been difficult to restart without damaging my wheelchair.

The entrance to the fan park was a logjam, with staff and some fans ignoring my presence because I was out