Real Madrid beat Liverpool 1-0 on Saturday in Paris to win the Champions League, the competition to determine the best soccer club in Europe. However, scenes of police appearing to indiscriminately fire tear gas and pepper spray at fans have dominated the headlines in the game’s aftermath.
The game’s kickoff time was delayed 37 minutes as a logjam of fans at the Liverpool entrance forced many to wait hours in line, with some never making it inside. UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, blamed industrial-scale fake ticket sales.
“In the lead-up to the game, the turnstiles at the Liverpool end became blocked by thousands of fans who had purchased fake tickets which did not work in the turnstiles,” UEFA said in its statement. “This created a buildup of fans trying to get in. As a result, the kickoff was delayed by 35 minutes to allow as many fans as possible with genuine tickets to gain access.”
“As numbers outside the stadium continued to build up after kickoff, the police dispersed them with tear gas and forced them away from the stadium,” the statement read.
In social media videos, fans are seen pleading with stadium stewards to be allowed in while showing the tickets they bought. Many fans, some of whom were children, were left coughing and gasping for breath on the sidewalks outside the Stade de France due to the pepper spray and tear gas.
The police response elicited a storm of criticism, with UEFA ordering an independent report to “examine decision making, responsibility, and behaviors of all entities involved in the final.”
“Evidence will be gathered from all relevant parties and the findings of the independent report will be made public once completed,” UEFA said, though it did not provide a timeline.
On Monday, French authorities defended the actions of police by doubling down on UEFA’s claim of industrial levels of fake ticket sales, claiming that 30,000 to 40,000 people tried to enter the Paris stadium with counterfeit tickets or none at all. Hundreds of people with legitimate tickets had difficulty accessing the stadium.
“There was massive fraud at an industrial level and an organization of fake tickets because of the pre-filtering by the Stade de France and the French Football Federation, 70% of the tickets were fake tickets coming into the Stade de France,” French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said. “Fifteen percent of fake tickets also were after the first filtering … more than 2,600 tickets were confirmed by UEFA as non-validated tickets even though they’d gone through the first filtering.”
The French Sports Ministry has not provided evidence for its claims of extensive ticket fraud.
“A massive presence of these fake tickets, of course, was the issue why there were delays,” Darmanin said. “Three times, the beginning of the match was delayed.”
Liverpool Chief Executive Billy Hogan called the French authorities’ conclusion “completely inappropriate,” saying it was too early to determine the true extent of fake tickets.
“At this stage, I think it’s just not responsible to be making comments before we’ve actually gathered all the information,” Hogan said. “How can [the number of fans without tickets] be quantified at this stage, before we’ve had an independent and transparent investigation? There’s also been quotes about people with fake tickets. But, again, how do we know all the facts until we’ve had an investigation?”
Hogan said Liverpool was “reviewing legal avenues” on behalf of its supporters.
“The Champions League final should be one of the finest spectacles in football, and it resulted in one of the worst experiences of many supporters’ lives. So, I would say that all politicians and agencies involved in this event need to wait until a full and independent investigation is concluded before attempting to shift blame,” said Hogan.
Nonetheless, Darmanin defended the police response, claiming it prevented deaths.
“I’d like to thank the forces of law and order, also those who worked in the stadium, because they were very calm and they were able to avoid drama and so thank you for organizing the pre-filtering but lifting it when there was too much pressure to avoid a drama,” Darmanin said. “That was a decision made by the prefecture to avoid any kind of deaths or seriously injured.”
French Sports Minister Amélie Ouéda-Castéra blamed late-arriving fans for the crowd control issues but did not say how far ahead of time they should have arrived at the stadium.
“We have seen we have to improve in risky matches certain aspects with regard to managing the flows, first filtering, second filtering, and we have to make sure we look at electronic ticketing as closely as possible so we can avoid fraud as far as ticketing is concerned,” Ouéda-Castéra said. “That is something which is absolutely essential.”
Ouéda-Castéra did call for supporters who had legitimate tickets and could not get into the stadium to be compensated.
“We are extremely sorry for all the people whose experience was wasted all that evening,” Ouéda-Castéra said. “For the people who had bought tickets and were unable to attend the match. That’s why we have asked UEFA to really work on a compensation system for those people — 2,700, including British people — so that they get compensation.”
UEFA did not mention compensating fans in its first statement about its investigation.
French authorities also said they are creating a group that will work on preventing violence in stadiums after a streak of incidents this season in its domestic league games.
