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The chaos fans experienced during the Champions League final in Paris last May was caused by a technological collapse combined with faulty pre-match messaging and negligent crowd control, The Mail on Sunday can reveal after a three-month investigation.
A technology glitch identified by multiple fan witnesses and cited as a major concern in Liverpool yesterday by groups of fans who attended UEFA’s independent review caused much of the chaos but was compounded by the error. in the crowd control, which led 37,000 Liverpool fans to an entrance designed for approximately 10,000 to 12,000 fans.
Law firm Binghams is filing a lawsuit against UEFA on behalf of 1,450 fans for negligence, and UEFA’s Independent Review is expected to report in November. The findings contradict French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who tried to blame the fans without tickets, and the initial stance of UEFA, which was responsible for the late arrival of supporters.
The MoS has put together a 12,000-word report of the chaos that we will make available online and submit to Dr. Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, the chairman of the independent review, after being approached by a large number of Liverpool fans following our initial report.
The report is based on interviews with more than 40 eyewitnesses, with accompanying video footage, and the report of Le Delegue Interministeriel aux Grands Evenements Sportifs (DIGES) and the findings of the French Senate.
At last May’s event, ticket scanner failure and a technical collapse caused abnormal queues, overcrowding and loss of control by authorities, with aggressive stewards assuming that scanning errors meant dealing with multiple counterfeits, when in fact tickets were real. Indeed, fans with both paper and digital tickets were denied entry and have not yet received compensation.
The problems also meant that some stewards had hundreds of fans crawling under the turnstiles, believing their tickets to be legitimate. Although they were well-intentioned and recognized the dangerous crush behind them, their actions meant that the authorities subsequently lost control of how many legitimate ticket holders were in the stadium.
Emotional Liverpool fans, including a child in tears, outside the Stade de France in May
At this point, around 7pm, it should have been clear to the authorities that they had lost control and had to postpone or postpone the match. Instead, an announcement was made at 8:46 PM local time, just 14 minutes before kick-off, and then only a 15-minute delay was announced.
The situation was then aggravated by outdated police forces, based on decades-old prejudices, and this was exploited by local criminals, leading to the police’s indiscriminate tear gas, which ironically contributed to the collapse of the order.
The eyewitness accounts describe an anarchic situation in which authorities lost their nerves, abandoned controls and used tear gas as the default response to mitigate past mistakes. The lack of control from authorities continued after the game, when criminals attacked Real Madrid and Liverpool fans.
Ironically, given that Darmanin and UEFA said Liverpool was a contributing factor to the crowd-control problems, insisting on issuing paper tickets to their fans rather than digital tickets, it was not scanning digital tickets just as much of a problem and the verification process, which required Bluetooth to be activated and which meant a ticket was only activated by a flight attendant.
Several Liverpool fans tried to show the police their tickets to go quickly into the ground
But because many of these initial checks were abandoned amid the chaos, people arrived at turnstiles with tickets that could not be scanned. That made stewards hostile and aggressive or led to the need for fans to climb over or under turnstiles. It may also explain why the false ‘counterfeit tickets’ story is gaining currency.
Martin Kallen, CEO of UEFA Events, UEFA’s logistics arm that leads the grand finals, told the French Senate inquiry that other technological glitches may have played a part in the chaos. “Numerous counterfeit tickets were found on the outside edge, leading the stewards to believe the chemical pen was faulty,” Kallen said. Indeed, this issue had been spotted by security as early as 5pm, an hour before the gates opened, although apparently nothing was done to rectify it.
The ticket scanning issues were evident at all gates and are also being reported by Real Madrid fans. Things got worse towards the Liverpool end due to mistakes in crowd management and failure to adjust plans put in place before announcing a railway strike.
The match was delayed 35 minutes because scenes outside the ground disrupted proceedings
The biggest problems arose on Ave du President Wilson, which had become the main gateway to the stadium for almost all Liverpool fans due to pre-match reports. Due to a strike by some French train workers, mixed messages supporters believed that the RER B station, La Plaine Stade de France, would be closed or not fully functioning. It actually worked, but not at full capacity. However, according to the Senate’s initial investigation, from about 3:30 p.m., messages on the UEFA app and on stations told fans to use RER D and avoid RER B.
According to Le Monde’s investigation, with access to official transport figures, 37,000 fans attempted to access the stadium from that station, four times more than the usual number.
UEFA maps issued ahead of the game made it clear that Liverpool fans arriving from Line D Stade De France station should have followed Ave Francois Mitterrand, cross Ave du President Wilson and east before they had to turn left into Ave du Stade de France, where there was again a ticket control, which fans say was manned with more stewards than at Gate X.
But virtually all of the 37,000 fans who arrived at that station turned left onto Ave du President Wilson.
According to witness statements, most of the police were useless and even hostile to the Liverpool fans
Witness accounts also cited the hostility and unhelpfulness of most police, the complete lack of information to fans off the ground and lack of proactive stewarding. Even when the kick-off was postponed, it was only announced to those who were in the stadium.
The chaos and crime leading up to the match was a prelude to what was to come, when Real Madrid and Liverpool fans were attacked by local mobs, highlighting the unwillingness or inability of the French police to maintain control.
According to the Senate report, the overall organization was “based on an outdated vision of British fans reminiscent of the hooligans of the 1980s. Officials were therefore focused almost exclusively on maintaining order without tickets for fans outside the stadium.”
Pre-match intelligence equated the Hillsborough disaster with hooliganism and suggested Liverpool fans might invade the pitch.
The Mail on Sunday has made a series of recommendations to UEFA and is ready to enter into dialogue with the federation, on the understanding that they want and need to learn from the mistakes.
UEFA wants to learn lessons from Paris incident in which fans were injured or traumatized