The Minister of Sports and the Olympics, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, estimated on Monday on RTL that Liverpool “had left its supporters in the wild” on the occasion of the Champions League final on Saturday and also considered “regrettable” the use of tear gas against families in front of the Stade de France.
“The fact that the Real club has supervised the coming of its supporters to Paris to such an extent (…) which contrasts radically with what the Liverpool club has done, which has left its supporters in the wild, created a major difference”, estimated the new minister two days after the fiasco of the final.
Asked about the number of English spectators without tickets, she quoted the figure of “30 to 40,000 people with fake tickets and without tickets”. Asked specifically about the proportion of counterfeit notes, she said: “we will look at all that”. “We have to look at where these counterfeit notes come from,” she added.
She confirmed that Liverpool had asked UEFA, which agreed, not to use the mobile application but to have paper tickets, “a circuit of paper tickets which created overflows”.
She judged “that the most regrettable aspect of what happened” was that tear gas was used against families and children who came to watch the final.
Asked if she was “worried” about future events that France was going to organize such as the Olympics, she replied that France “was able to organize very large sporting events” citing the Tour de France or the Olympics. Euro 2016.
“I’m not worried, I’m very committed, very concerned that we learn absolutely all the lessons from what happened on Saturday evening to optimize everything that needs to be done in anticipation of the 2023 Rugby World Cup. and the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” she added.
At the end of the morning, a meeting is organized at the Ministry of Sports to take stock of the dysfunctions with the sports organizers, in particular the consortium of the Stade de France in the presence of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, UEFA, or even the town hall of Saint-Denis.
She spoke of “multiple responsibilities” also citing “certainly a lack of stewards at the level of what had been planned by the French Football Federation, a problem of cramped control areas”.
