Champions League - Liverpool have issued a strong rebuttal to comments made by UEFA director of communications William Gaillard, who branded their fans "the worst in Europe".

The Anfield club and European football's governing body have been locked in recriminations since the Champions League final against Milan, which was marred by ticketing and crowd trouble.

UEFA say there were no problems with the Milan continent.

But the Merseyside club's chief executive Rick Parry claimed problems at the final were UEFA's fault.

"The shortcomings in the management of the situation in Athens were apparent to anyone who was there, and these latest comments from UEFA should not deflect attention from that reality," he said in a club statement.

"What is most surprising about the latest comments from Mr Gaillard is that on the eve of the final, he quite rightly commented that Liverpool supporters 'have a tradition of good behaviour'.

"Let's not forget that these same supporters who Mr Gaillard is claiming are now the worst in Europe were praised by UEFA President Michel Platini after our semi-final victory against Chelsea only last month, commended for their behaviour in Istanbul in 2005 and actually honoured by UEFA at a gala dinner in Monte Carlo in 2001 as joint Supporters of the Years with Alaves after the UEFA Cup final."

Parry said the lack of turnstiles at Athens' Olympic Stadium made problems inevitable, especially because 40,000 fans travelled, compared with the clubs' ticket allocation of 17,000 each.

"To have a stadium with no counting system and no turnstiles is unforgivable for any standard of game, let alone a major final," said Parry.

"We produced a report for UEFA a week beforehand predicting, sadly, all of the things that did go wrong. We told UEFA our intelligence suggested there were 5,000 forged tickets in existence. They knew and we knew that thousands of fans would travel without tickets and we stressed the need for a proper check at the outer cordon."