Two investigation commissions headed by the French Senate into the events that occurred on the day of the Champions League final concluded that the chaos in the vicinity of the Stade de France was caused by “a series of errors and administrative failures” on the part of the authorities and the organization. It should be remembered that, initially, the high French authorities blamed the Liverpool fans and the attempted sale of counterfeit tickets as the main causes of the clashes that ended in assaults, robberies and pepper spray.
Now, and according to the BBC, the report of the two commissions created by the Senate indicates that the attribution of blame by the authorities was “unfair”, since there were “dysfunctional mistakes at all levels”. On May 28, the day that Real Madrid beat Liverpool and won the Champions League in Paris, the game started more than half an hour after the scheduled time due to the confusion created at the entrance to the stadium. Security problems caused by the ineffectiveness of electronic tickets, as well as a railway workers’ strike that made transportation to the stadium difficult, provoked a wave of violence that culminated in robberies and assaults, finally being subdued by the police through the use of gases. . .-Chile.
UEFA’s disarray and high spirits among Liverpool fans led to chaos (and an unprecedented delay) in the Champions League final
Laurent Lafon, one of the chairmen of the investigative commission, explained that there was a “dysfunctional chain of events” in preparation for fans entering the Champions League final stage. “Everyone went to his side without any real coordination,” he added, underlining the difficulty of creating a timeline of the events because the surveillance camera footage was deleted a week after the game, as no express and official request had been made for it to be preserved.
The Senate investigation heard from representatives of the authorities, elements of stadium security but also some Liverpool fans, the fans who ended up being in the eye of the confusion. One of the most controversial statements before the investigation commissions was that of the French Minister of the Interior, who he assumed the organization could have been better and apologized for the “disproportionate” use of pepper spray but maintained that the real culprits were the English fans. Previously, Gérald Darmanin had already indicated that around 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans arrived in Paris without tickets or with counterfeit tickets, and UEFA stated that the number of false tickets detected did not exceed 2,700.
UEFA apologizes to fans for incidents in Champions League final
Jean-Noël Buffet, the other chairman of the investigation commission, accused the minister of lying. “After all, he was talking nonsense. That’s what sparked the situation. If she had just admitted the mistakes and apologized, there wouldn’t even have been a problem.” Shooting. It should be remembered that UEFA is also carrying out an independent investigation into everything that happened in the run-up to the Champions League final, in a dossier led by Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, former Minister of Education.
Source: Observadora
