Sports

French investigation accuses organizers of Champions League fiasco

July 13, 2022

A French Senate investigation into the crowd chaos at this year’s Champions League final in Paris concluded that the organizers were to blame, not the fans, undermining claims by police and the minister for Interior Gerald Darmanin.

A fact-finding mission led by two senators has been set up after the May 28 Liverpool-Real Madrid match which was marred by a delayed kick-off, run-ins, tear gas and street crime.

The investigation concluded that the problems were caused by a “chain of malfunctions”, including a lack of preparation by the French authorities and poorly executed security arrangements.

“These dysfunctions were at all levels, not only during the implementation but also during the preparations upstream”, declared the co-president of the investigation Laurent Lafon during a press conference.

The final report contradicted repeated statements by Darmanin that Liverpool fans were primarily responsible, with the minister saying up to 40,000 of them went to the stadium either without tickets or with fake tickets.

“The first statements (by the minister) do not correspond to reality,” François-Noël Buffet, co-president of the investigation, told the press.

“The minister’s conclusions the evening and the next day were not the right ones,” added Lafon. “It was a biased, imprecise conclusion.”

Many Liverpool fans struggled to get to the stadium due to a transport strike, then found themselves in traffic jams and jostling at the stadium’s entrance gates.

As frustrated fans piled up around the Stade de France, police fired tear gas to push the crowd back, hitting many children as well as disabled supporters in wheelchairs.

After the game, visitors fell prey to local gangs as they made their way to local transport links, with many reporting pickpocketing, muggings and threats in full view of police.

The televised events were a national embarrassment and would have influenced the June legislative elections when President Emmanuel Macron lost his majority.

– ‘Failure’ –

Darmanin survived a government reshuffle in May and has since been given additional responsibilities as home secretary despite his claims, which have sparked fury in Liverpool and tension with the UK government.

Liverpool Football Club are particularly sensitive to scapegoating their fans after they were falsely blamed for the Hillsborough stadium disaster in Sheffield in 1989.

“The role of a commission like ours is not to call for the resignation of someone in government,” Buffet said when asked why the commission had not called for the resignation of Darmanin. .

Instead, its final report made a series of recommendations to authorities to improve security arrangements at major sporting events.

France will host the Rugby World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2024.

Authorities have also been under pressure to explain why stadium security camera footage was not recorded, removing a potentially vital source of information for investigators.

“The images will always be missing. That’s our biggest regret,” Buffet said.

Darmanin, a hardliner for law and order, issued his first partial apology at the end of June, telling RTL radio: “Should things have been handled better at the Stade de France (stadium)? The answer is yes. Am I partly responsible? The answer is yes.”

The Paris police chief, Didier Lallement, admitted during a hearing in the Senate on June 9 that the security operations had been a “failure”.

But he defended the use of tear gas to keep fans away from the stadium, saying there was “no other way”.

The Senate report recommended that police develop clearer guidelines on the use of tear gas and adopt other crowd control methods such as greater use of mounted officers and cannons. water.

France had to stage the Champions League final in record time after offering to host the match in February when they were withdrawn from Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

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French investigation accuses organizers of Champions League fiasco

– ‘Failure’ –

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