Two days after the chaotic scenes around the Stade de France, the new Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castera brought together the organizers of the Champions League final as well as the police and local authorities. At the end of this interview, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin certainly expressed “regrets” about the course of the evening, while maintaining a version of the facts substantially identical to that which he had proposed the same evening, despite strong criticism from the French and foreign press since: the disorder was caused by a large number of Liverpool supporters who came to the Stade de France without a valid ticket.
According to Gérald Darmanin, there would indeed have been Saturday evening “between 30,000 and 40,000 British supporters without tickets or with falsified tickets” near the Stade de France, a large part of whom would have sought to enter the stadium. “Before the first screening, 70% of British supporters had counterfeit tickets, and after this first screening another 15% of people who went through it had counterfeit tickets,” said the minister, referring to “massive fraud, organized and industrial” which would be the “evil-root” at the origin of the incidents of Saturday – to which are added, he recognizes, difficulties related to the routing in the RER of many supporters.
Only Liverpool supporters would be affected by this fraud: at 9 p.m. (time at which the kick-off should have been whistled), “97% of Real Madrid supporters were installed, compared to only 50% of Liverpool supporters”. The supporters of the two clubs had been allocated an identical number of places, around 20,000. A similar phenomenon (British fans without valid tickets) had already been observed in Spain during a Champions League final between two British clubs, Liverpool and Totenham, in 2019, further advances Gérald Darmanin.
The figure of 30,000 to 40,000 supporters without tickets or with counterfeit tickets is supported by a calculation put forward by the Minister: 79,000 supporters would have gone to the stadium by public transport, 16,000 by coach, and several thousand by personal vehicle – much more than the 80,000 that the Stade de France can hold. Of the 29 arrests that took place inside the stadium, half concerned British citizens, added Gérald Darmanin to support his account of the evening. The Minister of the Interior defended the action of the police on Saturday evening, saying that their intervention (criticized by British supporters) “avoided deaths and injuries”.
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Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera indicated that 2,700 valid tickets have not been activated – which corresponds to as many supporters who were unable to attend the match despite having purchased a valid ticket. She asked UEFA to find compensation as soon as possible. She then confirmed the existence of this fraud, arguing that many supporters were provided with tickets “which look extraordinarily like normal tickets”, and confirms that she had asked UEFA “for a precise investigation” into the origin and the methods of this fraud, in addition to the referral to the Bobigny prosecutor. Promising “to do all the restitution and transparency” on the information that will be brought to the attention of the government, Amélie Oudéa-Castera also announced measures to strengthen the “steering” of major sporting events, in conjunction with the prefect Michel Cadot , Interministerial Delegate for Major Sporting Events, as well as increased security at sporting events identified as “high risk”. Finally, the Minister announced that she was launching a reflection with the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice to strengthen the fight against hooliganism.
The purpose of this meeting was, in his words of welcome at the beginning of the interview, to “draw the lessons, the consequences and the lessons that are necessary, so that it never happens again, and to be ready for the cut world of rugby and the Olympic Games”. In addition to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin (who initially made it known that he would be represented by a member of his cabinet before changing his mind) and Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera, the prefect Paris police Didier Lallement, UEFA and the French Football Federation as well as representatives of the Stade de France, the Prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis and the town hall of Saint-Denis were invited.
