The scenes of chaos before the Champions League final, whose kick-off was delayed by more than thirty minutes on Saturday at the Stade de France, were caused by thousands of spectators carrying fake tickets, explained the UEFA in a statement.
“As the kick-off approached, the turnstiles (to enter the Stade de France) on the side of the stands reserved for Liverpool were blocked by thousands of spectators who bought fake tickets which did not work”, explained the European body in a press release.
“This created a backlog of spectators trying to get into the stadium and as a result kick-off had to be delayed by 35 minutes to allow as many spectators with valid tickets to enter the stadium as possible,” the statement continues.
“As the number of people outside the stadium continued to increase after kick-off, the police had to use tear gas to disperse them,” explained UEFA, which specified that it would proceed “urgently” to an audit of what happened with the French police and authorities, as well as with the French Football Federation (FFF).
The 2022 Champions League final, won by Real Madrid 1-0 over Liverpool, was marked by scenes of chaos, with long queues, spectators shouting their anger and others trying to climb the gates surrounding the Stade de France.
For its part, the Liverpool club has requested the opening of an investigation. “We are extremely disappointed with the access issues and perimeter security breaches suffered by Liverpool supporters,” the English club said in a statement.
“It’s the biggest game in European football and fans shouldn’t have to experience the kind of scene we witnessed tonight (Saturday). We have officially requested an investigation to determine the causes of these unacceptable problems,” he said.
A police source for his part told AFP that the French authorities had from the start alerted to the difficulty of managing several thousand supporters without tickets.
Faced with this situation, indicates this source, “we made an incentive communication” by calling spectators with tickets to come to the stadium from 6:00 p.m. to avoid crowd movements, and to avoid “that supporters with tickets stay outside” .
“There were jostling, crowd movements, we provided answers in terms of security (…) We reinforced security inside the stadium”, she underlines.
Another police source felt that it was “a bit easy” to criticize the police, while the latter pointed out from the start the difficulty of channeling so many supporters without a ticket.
