2022 UEFA Champions League Final chaos

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2022 UEFA Champions League Final
300px
Stade de France, host venue for the final
Date 28 May 2022 (2022-05-28)
Venue Stade de France
Location Paris, France
Organised by UEFA
Non-fatal injuries ≈ 238
Arrest(s) 68
Accused Liverpool supporters, Paris Police Prefecture, UEFA

Prior to the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final between English team Liverpool and Spanish team Real Madrid on the evening of 28 May 2022, crowd control descended into chaos at the entrances to the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France.

With a large build-up of fans around the stadium unable to gain access to the stadium in the hours prior to the scheduled kick-off time of 21:00 CET, French police attacked fans unprovoked with the use of tear gas and pepper spray. These actions were later defended by organisers UEFA and several French political figures, who accused supporters of Liverpool, of whom tens of thousands had travelled to the city, of disorderly conduct, including attempting to gain access to the stadium with counterfeit tickets and penetrating the stadium illegally. This led to the game beginning 36 minutes behind schedule, and resulted in dozens of arrests and hundreds of injuries.

Supporters, journalists, and political figures were quick to dispute the initial story of fan disorder, with videos and eyewitness testimony demonstrably proving otherwise. Collectively, they accused the organisers and security of major disorganisation and unpreparedness, as well as of smearing supporters using outdated stereotypes. A full enquiry has been commissioned by UEFA.

Pre-match

Ticketing

Liverpool received a ticket allocation of 19,618, equating to 26.1% of the capacity of the Stade de France,[1] with Real Madrid receiving a similar allocation of approximately 20,000.[2] 12,000 were sold to the general public,[3] and another 23,000 retained by UEFA to be distributed to "the local organising structure, UEFA and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters".[4] Liverpool supporters union Spirit of Shankly wrote an open letter to UEFA, criticising them for both the ticket allocation and the "exorbitant" prices,[5] and received support from Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp, accusing UEFA of only focusing on money and not the supporters,[6] and encouraged supporters to travel to Paris regardless of whether they had a ticket.[7]

According to the Agence France-Presse, 2,800 fake tickets were detected at the stadium gates while the French Football Federation said that 35,000 people with fake tickets or with no tickets eventually showed up at the stadium.[8] Paris police prefect Didier Lallemant said there was a large-scale ticket fraud operation, of "30,000 to 40,000 tickets", though this number was revealed to be 2,589 by The New York Times.[9] Some Liverpool supporters that had bought bona fide tickets were later refused entry. Liverpool defender Andrew Robertson said a friend of his was denied entry using an official ticket given by Robertson.[10] 2,700 ticket holders who were refused entry were to be given refunds.[11] Additionally, each club was designated a fanzone for supporters travelling to the city; Liverpool's was situated in Cours de Vincennes, while Real Madrid's was in Parc de la Légion d'Honneur.[12][13]

Stewardship

Stewards on the route set out for supporters coming from the D line station were insufficient and quickly overwhelmed. Moreover the approach was through a narrow enclosed pathway that quickly become clogged up.[14] The police requested that the stewards remove their controls at this point, for safety reasons. As a result, Liverpool fans were able to access the turnstiles at the immediate perimeter of the stadium, quickly leading to overcrowding and bottlenecks.[15][16] With stewards unable to cope, many Liverpool supporters had great difficulties entering the stadium, even with valid tickets with codes that had not already been presented.

Gates at one point were closed entirely, to try to calm matters, with many supporters still waiting outside. Police used tear gas and pepper spray on supporters outside the stadium.[17] By 21:00 local time, the originally scheduled kick-off time, thousands of seats remained empty in the Liverpool end. For "security reasons", the kick-off was initially delayed by 15 minutes to 21:15. This was further delayed by 15 minutes to 21:30, before being pushed back another 6 minutes to 21:36, eventually started at 21:37.[18]

Inside the stadium, messages on the public address system and the jumbotron attributed the delay to the "late arrival of fans";[19] Sky Sports News chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol disputed this, noting he arrived to the ground four hours before kick-off and was "quite shocked at how early supporters had turned up".[20] Journalists attending the match attributed the difficulties outside the stadium to the organisers.[18][21][22] In a later statement, French police said "people attempted to penetrate the stadium", and that police had "intervened to push back people trying to force their way through",[23] and blaming fans with "fake tickets" who were unable to enter through the turnstiles.[24][25]

According to Football Supporters Europe (FSE) board member Pierre Barthulemy, the head of the French Interior Ministry's Anti-Hooligan Division, Thibaut Delaunay, was not present because he was visiting Qatar to assist with the organisation of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.[26]

Post-match

Following the match, large groups of thugs attacked, mugged, and robbed both sets of supporters,[27][28] actions which were strategically organised by the perpetrators.[29] Eye-witnesses said gangs of youths were "roaming around outside" the stadium waiting for fans to leave following the full-time whistle.[30] French police arrested 68 people in total,[31] while a reported 238 people received medical attention.[32] MMA fighter, Paddy Pimblett who was at the match compared the events after the game to scenes from the American dystopian film The Purge with large groups of men armed with machetes, knives, bars and bats.[33] According to the testimony of a police officer in Le Figaro, there was mass sexual assault.[34] The secretary of Liverpool's disabled supporters' group told BFM TV that he saw the sexual assault of a disabled young woman.[35]

Response

Clubs

Immediately after the match, Liverpool requested a formal investigation into the causes of the issues.[36][37] Liverpool chief executive officer Billy Hogan described the stadium entry and security issues, in addition to the treatment of supporters, as "absolutely unacceptable",[38] said accusations being aimed at Liverpool supporters were "deeply hurtful",[39] and continued to defend the behaviour of Liverpool supporters.[40] By 31 May, the club had received over 5,000 responses after requesting experiences and issues encountered.[41]

On 3 June, Real Madrid followed suit, requesting that "what were the reasons that motivated that designation of the venue for the final and what criteria were taken into consideration taking into account what was experienced that day", and "answers and explanations to determine who were those responsible for leaving the fans unattended and defenceless", highlighting that video evidence showcased fans being "assaulted, harassed, mugged and robbed with violence".[42][43] Former Liverpool player, Jason McAteer said that his wife and son had been attacked and robbed after the game with his wife’s blouse being ripped open and her watch stolen. His son was kicked and his phone stolen.[44]

Fans

The tactics and actions of the French police were heavily criticised due to their similarity to the events of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which police incompetence in crowd control contributed to a human crush that claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool fans.[45][46][47][48][49] Several family members of Hillsborough victims who were in attendance at the final also compared the response of the police after the match to the response of South Yorkshire Police after the Hillsborough disaster; after Hillsborough, the then-prevailing narrative that drunken Liverpool fans were to blame was fostered by the police in concert with sympathetic journalists and politicians.[50][51] Survivors of the Hillsborough disaster who also attended the final in Paris reported having their trauma triggered by the "mayhem" on display.[52][53]

Former Liverpool players Kenny Dalglish, Robbie Fowler, Jim Beglin, and Jamie Carragher reported first and second-hand experiences which were highly critical of UEFA, the French police and Parisian locals.[54] Ronan Evain, executive director of the FSE, condemned the comments, saying "there is a cheap, very old prejudice against Liverpool fans, and I think it has been used for political gain by the French government.[55]

On 3 June, UEFA issued an apology to all of the Liverpool and Real Madrid supporters who "had to experience or witness frightening and distressing events".[56][57]

Political

British Labour Party MP Ian Byrne described the entrance as "one of the worst experiences" in his life due to the "horrendous security and organisation putting lives at risk".[58] The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss called for a full UEFA inquiry into how the chaos was allowed to unfold.[59] Joanne Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool criticised the "appalling management" of the match and the "brutal treatment" of Liverpool fans by the police and stadium officials and called their blaming of the Liverpool fans "shameful",[60] comments followed with agreement by Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nadine Dorries and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sport, Tourism, Heritage and Civil Society Nigel Huddleston, the latter of which criticised the use of tear gas against young and elderly Liverpool fans.[60]

French Sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin both blamed the problems before the game on Liverpool supporters and their behaviour.[61] This was disputed by reports and video evidence from the ground which demonstrated disorganised and heavy-handed policing,[62][63] including those of British broadcaster Sky Sports,[19] and newspaper The Daily Telegraph.[64] Merseyside Police praised the behaviour of Liverpool fans, describing it as "exemplary in shocking circumstances".[65] French politician and Member of the European Parliament Jérôme Rivière stated Darmanin's comments were a "lie", pressing him to "apologise to the British for having wrongly accused them and to the French for the shameful fake news".[66] Further to her earlier comments, on 30 May Oudéa-Castéra blamed a mass gathering of supporters with fake tickets for the chaos at the stadium.[67]

François-Noël Buffet, the President of the Law Committee, requested that Oudéa-Castéra and Darmanin should show proof for their post-game comments regarding counterfeit tickets.[68] Richard Bouigue, the deputy-mayor of the 12th arrondissement of Paris, was the first French politician to apologise to Liverpool, writing a letter to their supporters' union Spirit of Shankly, in which he said regretted what had taken place.[69] BBC News correspondent Hugh Schofield wrote that the fallout from the final had become an issue in the 2022 French legislative election to be held in June. Right-wing opponents of president Emmanuel Macron portrayed the chaos as stemming from locals from the banlieue of Saint-Denis, a largely immigrant-descent area.[70] French polling expert Jérôme Fourquet mentioned the events from the final as a reason why Macron's Ensemble Citoyens made losses at the elections, and Marine Le Pen's National Rally made large gains.[71]

Polling by Odoxa-Backbone Consulting found that 53% of the French public were apprehensive about France hosting the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Summer Olympics, and that 90% thought that the episode had harmed the nation's reputation abroad.[72]

On 9 June, the chief of the Paris Police Prefecture, Didier Lallement apologised for the use of tear gas but claimed that the main aim of the police operation was to save lives.[73] The same day, it was confirmed that the surveillance footage from the stadium had been destroyed as it had not been claimed by the courts within seven days.[74]

UEFA inquiry

On 30 May, UEFA announced they were commissioning an independent report into the events surrounding the final to examine the decision making, responsibility and behaviours of all entities involved, and would be led by Portuguese member of parliament Tiago Brandão Rodrigues on a pro bono basis. The report will be made public upon its completion, with UEFA evaluating the next steps to take.[75][76]

See also

References

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