29 May 2018
As of today, the memory of the victims of the Heysel Tragedy is honoured by the renaming of a piazza situated in the Borgo Dora district of the city.
The ‘Piazzetta vittime dello stadio Heysel’ was unveiled this morning at an event attended by Gianluca Pessotto, who had this to say about the symbolic gesture:
“It is a pleasure to be here for the renaming of this piazza in memory of our fans, who lost their lives for a football match. That is the most difficult thing to comprehend. It is important that people – even non-supporters – will now stop by here and wonder what happened on 29 May 1985.
“Since that day, so many things have been done and so many tragedies have been avoided, but we can still do so much, not only in the stadia but also in terms of educating the fans of the future.
“The thing that I find sad is that even today when the Bianconeri go to play in the other stadia, there is little respect for our victims. Unfortunately, the memory of Heysel is still too closely associated with Juventus, so the antagonism tends to prevail over the actual memory of what happened.
“This was not just a Juventus tragedy, just as terrible sporting tragedies in general do not only affect the clubs involved. They ought to touch everyone's hearts, but this still doesn’t happen very often today. Therefore, we hope that in the future there will be a little more sensitivity and respect.
“These are places for reflection, honour and commemoration,” concluded Pessotto. “Today we are making a concrete gesture towards people who lost their loved ones for a football match and it will help us to take a moment to reflect and move forwards to improve the world of football.”
