Irish Examiner View: Bottling up big issues by water confiscation 

Fans should not be blocked from ready access to water, which should be in plentiful supply and free at big sporting events

Manchester City's Jack Grealish with a bottle of vodka on stage after they completed the treble. Picture: PA.

Much of the end-of-season soccer coverage morphed into photographs of Manchester City’s Jack Grealish — once, like Declan Rice, a player coveted here because of their Irish forebears — doing a passable impersonation of Party Boy from TV’s Jackass series. All in a spirit of fun, albeit reconfirming the truism that there are many sportsmen who enjoy celebratory drinks.

Far less enjoyable was the experience of many people who journeyed to the Champions League final, Europe’s blue riband soccer event, which was contaminated by controversy over the treatment of supporters for the second year running.

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Setting aside the now habitual practice of restricting methods of travel to venues, or segregating people into cheerless “fan zones”, Istanbul featured another now-common feature of attendance at big sport: The confiscation of bottles of water before entering the ground. 

There may be a range of reasons for this. Arguably someone could have replaced their water with something colourless that packs a greater punch — gin, or vodka, or poteen perhaps. Or the bottle could be used as a missile. Or there may be some sort of principled objection to single-use plastic, in line with all those specious claims about Qatar delivering a net-zero World Cup last year.

More cynical attendees, perhaps with greater experience of such events, might also suspect some sponsors do not like rival products being carried onto their turf.

There’s money in hydration and soccer isn’t the only sport which wants its approved brand conspicuously consumed at its premier event.

Notwithstanding corporate decisions, it should not result in fans being blocked from ready access to water. Uefa, and all other sporting and concert behemoths, charge enough for their tickets. Water should be in plentiful supply and free.