Luzhniki disaster by "Izvestia" on 20 July. Some controversy in the media coverage of the Luzhniki football disaster is not unique. In 1989, three months before the "dark secret" article in "Sovetsky Sport", "The Sun" newspaper published a sensational article in the UK about the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 people lost their lives. That article also contained strong allegations and cited unnamed sources. The sensational versions of the Luzhniki disaster proved to be much more popular with the media than the facts provided by the investigation. Despite its refutation in 1989, the figure of 340 fatalities or its variations ("more than
Hillsborough disaster wider causes of the incident. Although the then-editor Boris Johnson did not write this piece, journalist Simon Heffer alleged he had written the first draft of the article "at Mr Johnson's request", and offered to apologise for its publication after it attracted "a furore in the city [of Liverpool]". Johnson apologised at the time of the article, travelling to Liverpool to do so, and again following the publication of the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in 2012; however, Johnson's apology was rejected by Margaret Aspinall, chairperson of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, whose son James, 18, died in the