The Legacy of England's Great Soccer Tragedy

Luckily for those of us who love the “beautiful game,” the culture did change. The most immediate and lasting changes were prompted by the publication, a few months after Hillsborough, of a damning report by Lord Taylor of Gosforth, later England’s Lord Chief Justice, criticizing the soccer industry’s poor treatment of supporters. The report led to a complete overhaul of stadium-safety regulations, and to the requirement that every spectator have an assigned seat. Public funds poured in to help teams with the transition. “For a sport that jealously guards its independence, it is worth noting that it was an influx of public money and a government review that forced the game to upgrade its antiquated infrastructure,” Owen Gibson pointed out in the Guardian, on the twentieth anniversary of the disaster.