VSchaos and frustration: on Saturday May 28, the police were overwhelmed around the Stade de France by the influx of tens of thousands of supporters and attempts to intrude by people without tickets dreaming of attending the final Champions League Liverpool-Real Madrid (0-1). Tear gas, intrusion attempts by climbing barriers, crowds gathered and impatient… After having been good-natured for a long time, the atmosphere suddenly tense as the match approached.
This mess forced the organizers to delay kick-off for more than thirty minutes and greatly frustrated spectators who had paid for their tickets but missed the entire first half. To explain this chaos, UEFA argued that the accumulation of spectators “was caused by thousands of spectators carrying counterfeit tickets”.
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Everything had however started in a festive and very good-natured atmosphere, under the great sun of a springtime Paris: dressed in the jerseys of the Reds or white Madrid tunics, tens of thousands of supporters swept quietly into the French capital, invited to join separate fan zones. But less than half an hour from the start of the match, the atmosphere became tense when at least a thousand supporters were slowed down before being able to enter, contained by the gendarmes. Annoyed, they shouted open the gate (“open the gate”), while the supporters could only pass one by one.
A game of cat and mouse
Then real intrusions undermined the system. Tear gas began to be launched to prevent a few dozen young people from nimbly climbing the barriers. Security agents and gendarmes then set off in pursuit, to bring them out immediately. This game of cat and mouse continued even after the match started. And shortly before 10 p.m., the police had to charge, causing a crowd movement. Enough to anger Liverpool supporters, who remained outside, although with tickets.
As a precaution, the police headquarters had deployed 6,800 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters. The Liverpool club has requested an investigation. For his part, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin pointed the finger at the attitude of “thousands of British supporters without tickets or with fake tickets who forced the entrances” to the Stade de France, making them bear the responsibility for the chaos. . The final originally scheduled for Saint Petersburg had been relocated to the Stade de France, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. But the authorities only benefited from three months to prepare the event instead of eighteen, the period provided for in the specifications of UEFA.