Soccer

French minister claims as many as 40,000 Liverpool fans turned up without official tickets

Gérald Darmanin regrets disorganised welcome for travelling support but doubles down on ticketing issue

Liverpool fans stuck outside the ground show their match tickets. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
Jon Henley and Peter Walker
Mon May 30 2022 - 14:46

France’s interior minister has said he regrets the “disorganised welcome” Liverpool fans received at the Champions league final on Saturday but blamed counterfeit ticket sales on an “industrial scale” for chaotic scenes at the Stade de France.

“We deplore a lack of organisation in the way the English fans were received,” Gérald Darmanin told a press conference on Monday. But he said 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans had turned up for the game either without tickets or with counterfeit tickets.

“There was massive, industrial-scale and organised fraud with fake tickets,” Darmanin said, claiming that 70 per cent of the tickets presented by Liverpool fans at the match were fake. Of about 30 people arrested at the stadium, more than half were British, he said.

Darmanin said 97% of Real Madrid fans had made it to their seats by the original 9pm kick-off time, but claimed that by that stage only 50% of Liverpool supporters were in the stands.

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The sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said the French government had requested “a very thorough investigation by Uefa into what happened, how and why it happened”. The governing body had agreed to undertake an inquiry, she said.

Her comments came as the British government called for Uefa to work with the French authorities on an investigation and for the findings to be published. Boris Johnson’s spokesman said the scenes around the stadium were “deeply upsetting and concerning”.

Oudéa-Castéra said France recognised “we have to improve on the organisation of these tricky matches”, including through better management of flows of fans from stations to the stadium, filtering and digital ticketing.

The minister, speaking after a meeting attended by Darmanin and representatives from the police, local and regional government, Uefa, the French football federation and the stadium management, earlier told French radio the problems had been exacerbated by a “certain number of youths from the nearby area who were present tried to get in by mixing in with the crowd”.

Johnson’s spokesman said: “We know many Liverpool fans travelled to Paris in good time to support their team in one of the biggest matches of the season, and we’re hugely disappointed at how they were treated. Fans deserve to know what happened, so we’re urging Uefa to work closely with the French authorities on a full investigation, and to publish its findings.”

The spokesman said Downing Street disagreed with arguments that Liverpool fans were responsible by arriving late. “We’ve obviously seen reports since Saturday of fans who were given authorised tickets from the club and not able to gain entry to the stadium,” he said. “We’ve seen statements from Uefa which also claim the delay to kick-off was caused by the late arrival of fans. That doesn’t chime with the experience of many of those standing outside the stadium.”

Uefa’s official statement made no mention of supporters coming late and it is understood it did not provide the big-screen message in the stadium attributing the kick-off delay to “the late arrival of fans”. The message was changed to explain that a “security issue” was behind the late start.

Police use pepper spray against fans outside the ground. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

The match between Liverpool and Real Madrid kicked off 36 minutes late after police and stewards turned away people attempting to enter the stadium after concluding they did not have valid tickets. Some ticket holders complained they were not let in. Television footage showed images of young men, who did not appear to be wearing Liverpool colours, climbing over the stadium fences and jumping inside. Other fans outside, including families with children, were teargassed by riot police.

Liverpool’s chief executive, Billy Hogan, said the treatment of fans was “unacceptable” and the club wanted a “transparent investigation” by Uefa.

French media and commentators have branded the scenes a national embarrassment with France due to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Olympic Games. Oudéa-Castéra said she remained confident in France’s ability to stage major events, noting that the Stade de France had successfully hosted countless full-capacity football and rugby internationals, athletics competitions and rock concerts since its opening in 1998 without serious incident.

She also said the problems had been exacerbated by a shortage of stewards at the gates and excessively narrow ticket control points outside the venue precinct, adding that Liverpool should bear some responsibility.

“Real Madrid organised their travelling supporters’ arrival with chartered coaches,” Oudéa-Castéra said. “That contrasts with Liverpool, which left its supporters to their own devices.”

The French minister also accused the Premier League club and Uefa of refusing to accept a requirement for fans to have digital tickets on their phones, which she said had encouraged “this whole circuit of paper tickets”.

Ronan Evain of the Football Supporters Europe association, which is accredited as an observer at Uefa matches, said the organisation had been “inflexible”, arguing that “France’s approach in terms of supporter management has always focused on show of force, far behind the rest of Europe”.

The chief of Paris police, Didier Lallement, said in a report there had been “significant shortcomings” in the way the organisers managed the Liverpool supporters.

He also blamed the problems partly on a strike on one of the two RER urban rail lines that run from Paris to the stadium, saying this meant some fans arrived late at the stadium through no fault of their own. There were also too few police at the stadium, he said, suggesting 18 units would have been preferable to the 10 on duty.

The police chief’s report, cited in French media, said the use of teargas was “regrettably necessary” at some points to “maintain the stadium’s impermeability”, although he apologised “wholeheartedly” for “the discomfort many spectators may have experienced”.

- Guardian