Almost nine months later, the chaotic management of the Champions League final at the Stade de France is singled out by a new independent report.

UEFA bears "primary responsibility" for the serious incidents "which almost led to disaster" last May, concluded, Monday, February 13, a group of experts mandated by the European body.

Endless waiting, supporters and families sprayed with tear gas or victims of robbery... The device for maintaining order during this Champions League final had given rise, on May 28, 2022, to scenes of chaos in Saint -Denis, causing a lively controversy in France and England.

"The group has concluded that UEFA, as the owner of the event, bears primary responsibility for the failures which almost led to disaster", can we read in this long document obtained by AFP, which also pinpoints the Prefecture of Police and the French Football Federation (FFF).

"Even if it was reasonable to delegate security issues to others, first and foremost the FFF and to refer to (...) the Prefecture of Police for matters of maintaining order, it is not does not follow that UEFA is absolved of its responsibility. UEFA played a central role in the organization of the event and it should have watched, supervised and contributed to the security measures", argue the experts.

>> Chaotic evening at the Stade de France: a failure that questions two years from the Paris-2024 Olympics

UEFA's apologies, the "flaws" of the FFF

"The other stakeholders committed shortcomings which contributed (to the incidents) but UEFA was in charge" during this Liverpool-Real Madrid final, they insist, criticizing the insufficient coordination between all the stakeholders.

The European confederation immediately reiterated its "apologies" to the supporters, promising to take into account the many recommendations made by the experts and to introduce "the appropriate changes".

"On behalf of UEFA, I would like to sincerely apologize once again to all those involved in the incidents," UEFA general secretary Theodore Theodoridis said in a statement.

"In particular, I would like to apologize to the Liverpool supporters for what they have been through."

The FFF is criticized by experts for its "key role" in the organization of the event, as the host federation.

The report mentions "communication failures" in connection with the Prefecture of Police on the issue of transport, which quickly caused bottlenecks on the arrival of supporters.

"These flaws should not have occurred. And when they were detected, the FFF should have made them a priority", point out the experts.

The figures of the French authorities "falsely inflated and exaggerated"

The independent report finally castigates the poor reaction of the French security forces, arguing that the police's use of tear gas and pepper spray had "no place in a football party".

Experts in the report, led by Portugal's former education, youth and sports minister, Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, said they were "flabbergasted" that the match's policing pattern could have been influenced by the image of Liverpool supporters assimilated to hooligans, an "inexplicable misconception".

"The security approach (...) was based, inappropriately, on the assumption that Liverpool supporters could pose a significant threat to public order," they further note.

The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had initially incriminated the British supporters with the many falsified tickets according to him, before the prefect Didier Lallement admitted to having "perhaps been mistaken" on their number, recognizing a "failure". 

Independent experts commissioned by UEFA, for their part, concluded on Monday that there was "no evidence of an abnormally large number of fans without tickets or with invalid tickets", castigating the authorities' figures , "falsely inflated and exaggerated", and suggesting that this exaggeration may have been intended to "deflect responsibility for operational failures".

A government report, for its part, had also pointed to police and organizational dysfunctions, at the end of this episode which tarnished the image of France as the Paris-2024 Olympics approached.

With AFP

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