Spectators blocked at the entrance to the stadium, tear gas, and attempts to break in by climbing barriers: the party that was to precede the Champions League final, Saturday May 28, between Real Madrid and Liverpool at the Stadium of France was spoiled and turned into real chaos.
The kick-off of the match – initially scheduled for 9 p.m. – between the two best European teams of the season was even delayed by 36 minutes, an extremely rare decision.
From 6:30 p.m., many fans holding tickets were blocked around the stadium, before accessing the first security checkpoints, noted a journalist from the World. Around 8 p.m., tempers began to heat up, a few dozen supporters then not hesitating to climb the last access barriers inside the sports enclosure. The police then used tear gas, Agence France-Presse (AFP) observed.
?LÍO EN EL STADE DE FRANCE? ?Aficionados se intentionan colar al estadio a minutos del comienzo de la #UCLfinal. (via… https://t.co/o5UKrpUAc1
“The situation was close to disaster when a bottleneck formed, following poor referral of supporters when they left the RER D and then problems opening and closing the doors of entrance to the stadiumexplains a spectator present on the scene. People had been waiting quietly for hours when the crowd movements increased. Some – even children and the elderly – were gassed or crushed against barriers. »
Nearly 7,000 police and firefighters deployed
“Do not force entry to the Stade de France”warned, at 8:40 p.m., on Twitter in French, English and Spanish the Paris Police Prefecture (PP), which had deployed 6,800 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters to ensure the security of the match, with an eye on the thousands of Liverpool Reds fans who came without tickets.
#UCLfinal | ❌ Don’t force entry to @StadeFrance. ? ViaMichelin
Long sparse, the stands welcoming fans of the “Reds” in particular finally filled up little by little during the first period. Among the supporters of the English club, the criticisms against the organizers, both France and UEFA, were bitter in the face of this “fiasco” of organization.
The 2016 Olympic boxing champion Estelle Mossely was refused access to the stadium by a security guard. “The ticket does not pass, it’s nonsense, I’ve been waiting for an hour”, she gets angry. She will finally be able to enter, a few minutes before the end of the first half.
It’s 1 scandal what’s happening at @StadeFrance! Blocked for more than an hour, gassed, jostled… Access to the stadium… https://t.co/lms3D3VRfV
Counterfeit tickets and intrusion attempts without a ticket
The Prefecture of Police (PP) explained that “people without tickets forced the roadblocks and tried to enter the stadium to watch the match”. Attempts which, according to the PP, caused “crowd movements”justifying the intervention of the police to “Repel attempts to enter the stadium, keep disrupters away and facilitate access for spectators with tickets”.
For its part, UEFA explained this chaos by the presence of many counterfeit tickets. “As the kick-off of the match approaches, the turnstiles [pour entrer au Stade de France] on the side of the stands reserved for Liverpool were blocked by thousands of spectators who bought fake tickets which did not work”explained the European body in a press release.
“This created a backlog of spectators trying to get into the stadium and as a result kick-off had to be delayed by 35 minutes to allow as many spectators with valid tickets to enter the stadium as possible.”, continues the text. This explanation was then confirmed by the Prefecture of Police in a terse press release at 12:30 a.m.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, present at the Stade de France security headquarters, pointed out in a tweet the attitude “thousands of British ‘supporters’ without tickets or with counterfeit tickets who forced entry” of the Stade de France.
With @AOC1978, at the Stade de France security headquarters. Thousands of British “supporters”, without tickets or with… https://t.co/ggVhebbgea
This setback spoils the party started during the day in Paris and Saint-Denis in the fan zones of the two teams. Place de la Nation, nearly 30,000 fans of the “Reds” notably painted the course of Vincennes, in the French capital, red in a good-natured atmosphere – apart from an incident in a café, whose terrace was charged with truncheons by the police.
The crowd who still hoped to enter before the start of the match remained in the square behind barriers and a large number of mobile gendarmes and police officers. They then fell back to the bars which had installed screens and were serving drinks.
At the end of the match won by Real Madrid (1-0), the Reds supporters did not wait and headed for the metro entrances, lighting their last sparklers. Conversely, the French spectators celebrated the victory of Real and chanted “Benzema”, not hesitating to make fun of the British. Finally, a few groups of spectators remained in the square and threw bottles at the police who responded by firing grenades and charging, making a few arrests.
The 2024 Olympics in sight
The organizational hiccup at the Stade dyonisien questions France’s ability to manage crowd movements and ensure security during major sporting events. The 2022 Champions League final was originally scheduled to take place in Saint Petersburg, before its organization was withdrawn to the city following the invasion of Ukraine. She was repatriated to Paris, which had to manage the influx of 60,000 Liverpool supporters in particular, while a contingent of 20,000 tickets was allocated to supporters of the “Reds”like those of Real.
The police system put in place on Saturday was to serve as a test for the Rugby World Cup, organized in France at the end of 2023 and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. The competence of the French authorities was found faulty on Saturday in front of hundreds of millions of viewers around the world.
UEFA has clarified that it will proceed “urgently” to an audit of what happened with the police and the French authorities, as well as with the French Football Federation (FFF). For its part, the Liverpool club has requested the opening of an investigation. to determine the causes of these unacceptable problems”.
“It’s the biggest game in European football and fans shouldn’t have to experience the kind of scene we witnessed tonight,” deplores the English club in a press release.
At the end of the evening, the prefecture noted that the dispersal of spectators was taking place ” without difficulty “and that’“no major incident had been observed in the two fan zones”in Saint-Denis and Cours de Vincennes in Paris.
At 11:45 p.m., according to an initial provisional report from the Ministry of the Interior, there was “53 arrests and 24 police custody” in Paris and Saint-Denis. He also specifies that “115 supporters were slightly injured, four of whom were evacuated by firefighters” and that’“There were no injuries among the police”.