Incidents at the entrances to the Stade de France before the Champions League final. /
Champions League
French police officers will travel to Madrid and London to collect any complaints from Spanish and British fans who have been victims of infractions and who have not been able to report them in France
Real Madrid and Liverpool fans will be able, “starting Monday”, to denounce in their respective countries the incidents of which they were victims in the vicinity of the Stade de France, on the outskirts of Paris, during the chaotic Champions League final that pitted these two football clubs against each other, announced yesterday the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
French police officers will travel to Madrid and London to collect any complaints from Spanish and British fans who have been victims of infractions and who have not been able to report them in France for having returned to their countries after the match, the minister specified before the commissions of Laws and of Culture of the French Senate.
Fans of both teams denounced in the press and on social networks that they were victims of robberies or assaults by local criminals or police excesses. The public prosecutor’s offices in Paris and Bobigny will handle the complaints. Darmanin said that the negative image of this party is “an injury to our national pride” and acknowledged that “things could have been better organized.”
The minister maintained during his appearance before the Senate his thesis that the serious problems in access to the stadium were related to the presence of some 35,000 English fans without tickets or with counterfeit tickets, in addition to the 75,000 spectators who did have valid tickets for the final. Some 2,700 British fans were unable to access the stadium, despite having a ticket due to the chaos that ensued.
“Scam in organized gang”
The turnstiles of the Stade de France counted 2,800 false tickets from Liverpool fans who wanted to access the stands to watch the game. “The same entry was duplicated 760 times and another 744 times,” the minister specified.
The Bobigny prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Tuesday for “organized gang fraud” due to the large number of counterfeit tickets detected from Liverpool fans.
Darmanin recalled that “there were no problems” with the Madrid fans, since most of them had electronic tickets and not paper ones, like those of Liverpool fans. The chaos in managing the strong influx of fans also contributed to the strike on one of the commuter train lines that led to the stadium.
Hours before the ministers appeared before the Senate, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused Darmanin of “lying” about the figures for forged tickets. The far-right leader believes the Home Secretary should resign and “apologize” to Liverpool supporters.
Despite the controversy, Darmanin has “all the confidence of the President of the Republic,” Emmanuel Macron, according to French government spokeswoman Olivia Grégoire.
