- Title: Welsh police ready for Champions League final
- Date: 1st June 2017
- Summary: CARDIFF, WALES, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 1, 2017) (REUTERS) POLICE JACKET ON BACK OF CHAIR AT SOUTH WALES POLICE COMMAND CENTRE FOR THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL VARIOUS OF POLICE OFFICERS WORKING IN COMMAND CENTRE VARIOUS OF SOUTH WALES POLICE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE, RICHARD LEWIS, TALKING THROUGH SOME OF THE LOGISTICAL PLAN FOR THE FINAL (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTH WALES POLICE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE, RICHARD LEWIS, SAYING: "The scrutiny and the eyes of the world are upon us. So the magnitude of it is far greater and obviously the commercial side of it is far greater and the security issues are greater themselves. So, plus we are very much used to dealing with Wales and the Six Nations. We've had the Rugby World Cup, we've had FA Cups here, we've had all sorts of events at the stadium in other locations. This is undoubtedly the biggest sporting event that Cardiff has ever hosted but I'm sure with our partners we'll host a really enjoyable and secure event." VARIOUS OF THE SOUTH WALES POLICE RED DRAGON LOGO (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTH WALES POLICE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE, RICHARD LEWIS, SAYING: "Well, a lot. That's the easiest thing to say but to give you some quantum; on Saturday on the game we'll have 2,000 deployments of officers unarmed over a 24-hour period and if you look at the whole of the event, the festival, going back to yesterday we've got back about 6,000 deployments of police officers. That's just unarmed police officers and on top of that we'll be deploying 550-600 deployments of armed police officers over that time." POLICE OFFICER TALKING ON PHONE / POLICE OFFICER STANDING UP AND TALKING TO COLLEAGUE CLOSE OF CCTV FOOTAGE OF CARDIFF BAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTH WALES POLICE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE, RICHARD LEWIS, SAYING: "Well you start doing the figures, the ground will hold about 66,000-70,000 people. There's over 12,000 people working on it. There's over 2,500 media people working on it. There's huge numbers of emergency services working here, you know, I've just talked about thousands of police officers well it's similar with the ambulance services, the local authority, all the retail. So, there's going to be well over 100,000 plus in Cardiff additional to the normal this weekend and in fact I think some of the projections for the festival this weekend - Thursday, Friday and Sunday - are adding something like 100,000-150,000 people to the area." INTERIOR OF COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE OF CCTV SCREENS POLICE OFFICE WORKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTH WALES POLICE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE, RICHARD LEWIS, SAYING: "Well, I mean I mentioned earlier Cardiff was awarded this in 2015. Since then we've had the atrocities in Paris, Brussels, we've had the Christmas market issue in Germany, Westminster so all the way along through our planning regime we've had these terrorist attacks - slightly different methodologies and slightly different ways of doing things so we've taken that into our consideration and the way we've planned for this to try and prevent and mitigate those issues. Manchester, it was an absolute atrocity I have to say and I think we were all shocked by it. The actual first impact of it was we'd already upped our policing visibility last week, so there were a lot more police officers around South Wales just like the rest of the UK. Obviously it's returned to the severe threat assessment which was in place before which we always planned for. So we haven't significantly changed our plan in anyway. We were already very confident that we'd taken into account the methodologies and the way in which terrorists have attacked previously." VARIOUS OF SCREEN SAVER ON COMPUTER SCREEN, READING: "SECURITY LEVEL SEVERE. AN ATTACK IS HIGHLY LIKELY" POLICE OFFICERS WORKING IN COMMAND CENTRE
- Embargoed: 15th June 2017 16:27
- Keywords: security Champions League soccer football Wales Cardiff police Juventus Real Madrid
- Location: CARDIFF, WALES, UNITED KINGDOM
- City: CARDIFF, WALES, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Soccer,Sport
- Reuters ID: LVA0016JG6JI7
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: South Wales Police are preparing for the biggest sports event Wales has ever hosted when the Champions League comes to Cardiff on Saturday (June 3).
Up to 170,000 people are reported to be heading to the Welsh capital as defending champions Real Madrid face Juventus at the National Stadium of Wales with the European Cup at stake.
Assistant Chief Constable, Richard Lewis told Reuters that there would be over 6,000 unarmed police officers working on the operation with a further 550 armed officers on the streets.
Lewis said the operation had taken into account various attacks over recent years in Paris, Brussels, London and most recently Manchester and he is confident South Wales Police will be ready to cope with any situation.
The match kicks off at 1845GMT on Saturday. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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