Champions League: Macron wants ‘full transparency’ over chaos at finalon June 1, 2022 at 1:31 pm

French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for “full transparency” over the chaos that marred Saturday’s Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool in Paris.

The match was delayed as Liverpool fans queued outside the stadium.

French police used tear gas and pepper spray on some supporters.

Authorities blamed ticket fraud and the sports minister said Liverpool had let fans “out in the wild”. But Liverpool fans contested her version of events.

They blamed organisational failures, heavy-handed policing and overcrowding, while club chairman Tom Werner demanded an apology for minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera’s comments.

Footballing sources told AFP that 2,800 fake tickets were detected at the stadium gates, while the French Football Federation alleged that some 35,000 people had shown up with fake tickets or with no tickets at all, causing disorder by blocking the gates.

Mathieu Valet, a spokesman for France’s independent police commissioner’s union (SICP) told the BBC that it was not fake tickets or ticketless supporters who were the main problem: “It’s clear that we needed more police – we didn’t have enough on the ground.”

A French government spokeswoman said President Macron wanted the light “shone on what really happened, in full transparency, and very quickly”.

She said he had full confidence in Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who is facing criticism over how police handled the crowds, while acknowledging the situation could have been handled better.

Mr Darmanin has said there was ticket fraud on “an industrial scale” and defended the police’s conduct, saying their actions prevented deaths.

Mr Macron was reportedly “furious” with the interior minister. According to satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, he found the events outside the Stade de France “shameful” and “unworthy of France”.

Mr Darmanin and the sports minister are due to be grilled about the fiasco by the French Senate later on Tuesday. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was said to have discussed the issue when she met the interior minister on Tuesday.

Europe’s football governing body Uefa has commissioned an independent report into what happened at the final.

The Liverpool chairman complained that “the Uefa Champions League final should be one of the finest spectacles in world sport, instead it devolved into one of the worst security collapses in recent memory”.

Many fans said they had arrived at the stadium hours before kick-off but were barred from getting into the ground.

It has also emerged that supporters were targeted by local gangs, with reports of mobile phones being stolen and girls and young women being groped. Six people appeared in court on Tuesday after dozens of people were arrested.

Local Saint-Denis mayor Mathieu Hanotin has called for lessons to be learned ahead of the Paris Olympics in 2024. It was not just that tickets were in high demand but the event also became a lightning rod for local hooligans because “it smelled of money”, he said.

“We cannot welcome the world in these conditions.”