PARIS – Fan Diaries lead to a 35-minute delay in Saturday’s start Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Liverpool was caused by people trying to use “fake tickets” to enter the match, the tournament’s organizers said.
Issues with crowd control and access – which appear to have been caused by organizational failure rather than mob misconduct – have left thousands of fans, many of them Liverpool supporters. got valid tickets, stuck for hours, with few doors and lack of staff on the ground.
The confusion kept fans out of their team’s biggest game of the season and created a potentially dangerous situation in which French policemen, wearing helmets and carrying shields, used second-hand containers. which UEFA, the governing body of the Champions League, said was tear gas to keep the growing crowds at bay.
“During the lead-up to the game, the turnstiles at Liverpool’s end were blocked by thousands of fans who purchased fake tickets that did not work in the turnstiles,” UEFA said in a statement. its statement. “This created a huge amount of fans trying to get in. As a result, the match was started to be postponed 35 minutes to allow as many fans with genuine tickets as possible to gain access.”
The statement continued, “As the numbers outside the stadium continued to increase after the match started, the police dispersed them with tear gas and forced them to leave the stadium.”
In the chaos, fans begged the stadium managers to be allowed in, punched their tickets through the iron doors, and many coughed and gasped on the sidewalk outside the Stade de France, a modern arena built built for the 1998 World Cup.
Other fans have sought replacements, climbing fences and locking gates. A group of VIPs, delayed because of problems scanning the QR codes attached to their tickets, crossed the fence to try to get to their seats. After it ended, one of the officials said, they watched as police battled spectators who were still outside.
Inside the stadium, where the teams had completed the warm-up, two 15-minute delays were announced. But even before the crowd outside dispersed, UEFA proceeded with the absurd, with an elaborate pregnancy ceremony starring singer Camila Cabello. After she finished speaking, the teams entered the field and shook hands, and the finals began.
Police officers stationed at the stadium entrances blamed much of the chaos on locals on the outskirts of Saint-Denis, where the stadium is located, saying it wasn’t them. Fans wearing the colors of the competing teams were those wearing what they described as “civilian clothes” who tried to enter the stadium without tickets.
But the French Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, echoed UEFA’s version of events in a post on Twitter. He wrote: “Thousands of British ‘supporters’ without tickets or fake tickets are forced to enter and sometimes physically assault managers. “Thank you very much to the police force mobilized tonight in this difficult situation.”
Fans blamed it on a lack of organization, saying that some entrances were closed, forcing game attendees to line up in long lines. a crushed body when the start time is near.
UEFA officials initially appeared to blame the problems on “late arrivals”, although huge crowds were stuck at the gates hours before the scheduled match.
Tommy Smith, a Liverpool fan who had arrived in Paris from Ireland with a group of friends and family, said his team arrived two hours before the scheduled kick-off and found there were few entrances to the game. fans can present their tickets. “They’ve closed all the turnstiles related to Liverpool,” Smith said. “The fans waited two hours, there was order, there was no order, and we were in tears.” He said there was little information or direction from stadium staff.
Liverpool debut statement during the match in which the club said it was “deeply disappointed by the problems entering the stadium and breaking the security siege Liverpool fans have faced.” The team said they have requested a formal inquiry into these events.
Ronan Evan, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, a fan protection group, told The New York Times that the fans were bluffed.
“The fans at the Champions League final are not responsible for tonight’s defeat,” he said. “They are the victims here.”
By halftime, a UEFA security official said the Stade de France was locked, all entrances and exits were closed, while police were still deploying tear gas outside the pitch. motor.
“Right now, you’re safer inside than outside,” the UEFA official told an Australian executive looking to leave the stadium after half-time. Security officials said that “it was a police decision” to close entry and exit points.
In its statement after the match, UEFA said it would investigate the cause of the crowd problems, which came almost a year after the massive surge of fans without tickets to the European Championships. at Wembley Stadium, in London, overpowered the managers to gain access to that tournament’s final. The tournament is also a UEFA event.
“UEFA sympathizes with those affected by these events,” the organization said, “and will urgently consider these matters further together with the police and French authorities, and with the French Football Federation. .”
