supporters chased or perched on the railings, use of tear gas... Spectators and commentators were shocked by the clashes between supporters and the police on the sidelines of the Champions League final, won by Real Madrid against Liverpool, Saturday May 28, at the Stade de France, near Paris.
At least 105 people were arrested and about twenty placed in police custody, according to the authorities, in particular for violence and theft after the meeting.
“No degradation”, added the prefecture.
Extremely rare in the world of football, the match scheduled for 9 p.m. started thirty-six minutes late due to incidents around the stadium.
Many supporters had tried to climb the gates of the enclosure to try to force entry.
Brief scuffles then opposed the police who repelled these intruders, sometimes using tear gas.
Police block the entrance to the Stade de France before the start of the Champions League final, in Saint-Denis, May 28, 2022. © Christophe Ena, AP
French authorities have blamed "many supporters without tickets for the match, or holders of fake tickets [who] disrupted access to the Stade de France", according to the Paris police headquarters in a press release published on Saturday evening .
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, in a tweet, pointed to the attitude of "thousands of British 'supporters' without tickets or with fake tickets who forced entry and, sometimes, assaulted the stewards ".
With @AOC1978, at the Stade de France security headquarters.
Thousands of British "supporters", without tickets or with counterfeit tickets, forced entry and sometimes assaulted the stewards.
Thank you to the very many police forces mobilized this evening in this difficult context.
pic.twitter.com/gEXCqPhWmZ
– Gerald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 28, 2022
However, the authorities take things seriously: the Ministry of Sports and the Olympic Games announced on Sunday that a meeting would be held on Monday morning with the organizer of the final, the police and the local authorities in order to "identify the dysfunctions" and the problems of access of supporters to the stadium.
Footage from Reuters TV, as well as videos circulating on social media, showed riot police chasing supporters outside the stadium while others were escorted away by law enforcement.
In other images, supporters with tickets complain of having waited for more than four hours without success, of having been attacked or ripped off by street vendors.
"No incident" in the "fan zones"
Among the disillusioned football fans, the 2016 Olympic boxing champion Estelle Mossely, who was refused access despite an authentic ticket: "It's a scandal what is happening at the Stade de France, [je suis ] blocked for more than an hour, gassed, jostled“, she annoyed on Twitter.
She was finally able to enter, a few minutes before the end of the first half.
Far from the Stade de France, the evening in the two distinct "fan zones" - one for Real Madrid supporters in Saint-Denis and the other for those of Liverpool in the east of Paris - took place without "no incident to report", according to the prefecture.
These perimeters, with giant screens, drinks and entertainment, had been organized precisely for fans without tickets, including more than 30,000 English supporters of the "Reds" and 6,000 Spanish fans.
A total of 238 people were taken care of by the various emergency services at one time of the day, for "relative emergencies", ranging from drunkenness or minor accidents, including tear gas poisoning. , a spokesman for the Paris fire department told AFP.
Incidents "specific to football"
Associated Press sports reporter Steve Douglas has accused Stade de France security of forcing him to delete footage of incidents between police and spectators.
According to his colleague Rob Harris, UEFA staff had to intervene to prevent these demands.
This kind of incident "is specific to football", opines Sylvère-Henry Cissé, journalist and international sports consultant, on the antenna of France 24. "Because the final of the European rugby championship took place at the same time in Marseille, and it went very well, with thousands of Irish people present. There is a problem with football and with English football", recalling the final of Euro 2016, also enamelled with clashes.
But according to the expert, the big problem also comes from "the organization of UEFA, since it is the organizer and has not taken the measure to ensure security. There have been in particular problems in the pre-filtering, which must sometimes be five in number. There, there were none, hence the incidents. But there is also the responsibility of the State which should have coordinated with the 'UEFA'.
04:39
More than 6,800 police officers, gendarmes, firefighters and a large number of security agents were mobilized for Saturday's match in Paris.
This security device was to serve as a test for the Rugby World Cup in 2023, as well as for the Paris Olympics in 2024. It was all the more undermined as a transport strike modified the routes arrival of the public on the site.
"The question of France's ability to organize events of this size"
Ominous incidents, according to Ronan Evain.
For the executive director of the Football supporters Europe network, this failure "raises the question of France's ability to organize events of this size": "We continue to reproduce the same organizational patterns that have already failed in the There is a very strong need to modernize the approach to securing these meetings," he told AFP.
In the aftermath of these hiccups, the critics went well, even in the political arena.
In the middle of the campaign for the legislative elections in mid-June, the opposition, in particular Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, did not fail to deplore the lack of organization.
The presidential majority wishes to "recall the context", according to Aurore Bergé.
"This final should have been held in Russia [and France organized it] in barely three months", pleaded on RMC the LREM-Renaissance deputy.
Indeed, the meeting was initially to take place in Saint-Petersburg, before its organization was withdrawn to the Russian city after the invasion of Ukraine.
Paris had applied, claiming to have the necessary infrastructure.
The capital had to manage the influx of 60,000 Liverpool supporters in particular, while a quota of 20,000 tickets was allocated to supporters of the "Reds", as well as those of Real.
Liverpool supporters try to cope with tear gas to enter the Stade de France for the Champions League final, in Saint-Denis, May 28, 2022. © Fernando Kallas, Reuters
"Stade de Farce", "horde of barbarians", "evening of chaos"
The European media had very harsh words.
Like the British tabloid The Sun, which headlined in French "Stade de Farce", and relayed the testimony of Marvin Matip, brother of Reds defender Joel Matip, who said he had to take refuge in a restaurant with his pregnant wife to escape the tear gas scattered in their direction.
The Telegraph, another British tabloid, published the damning story of Jason Burt, head of the newspaper's football section.
"I was in front of Gate Y when I was caught in the tear gas used indiscriminately by the French riot police at the Stade de France. I was talking to supporters who had been waiting quietly, some for three hours, when they reached my face, stinging my eyes, my lips and my tongue. I saw that it was dispersed. I could not believe it […] it was absolutely shameful, "he says in a ticket.
If the Spanish press has mainly focused on the victory of Real Madrid, the incidents also have their place.
Alfredo Relano, honorary president of the sports daily As and respected voice of Spanish football, denounced in an editorial the Liverpool club and "its hordes of barbarians without entry tickets [who] have created an unnamed scandal at the gates of the stadium, [and] which could well have caused a disaster, although fortunately everything was back to normal with the delay of the kick-off."
"These facts cannot go unpunished," he adds.
The German media have also questioned UEFA's organizational flaws.
"The evening of chaos", writes the tabloid Bild.
"A bad evening at the end of a sad season for France, where security and public order problems have multiplied in the stadiums", struck in Italy, Corriere dello Sport, recalling that Ligue 1, it too, had experienced its share of excesses this year.
With AFP and Reuters
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