The British government has asked UEFA to open an official investigation into the incidents that preceded the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
The Secretary of State for Culture and Sport, Nadine Dorries, described as
"deeply disturbing"
the images of the French police attacking the English fans and the Labor MP Ian Byrne assured that the fans were
"treated like animals".
"I have never seen anything so terrible since 1989," Byrne alleged, expressly referring to the
Hillsborough
tragedy in which 97 Liverpool fans died.
"All they (the fans) wanted was to support their team in the biggest game of the season," said Nadine Dorries.
Several Merseyside police officers, sent from Liverpool as reinforcements, confirmed that most of the "reds" fans behaved "in an exemplary manner given the shocking circumstances".
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The inside story of the shameful chaos in Saint-Denis: "It's the French, not the English!"
Writing: ABRAHAM ROMERO(Special Envoy)Paris
The inside story of the shameful chaos in Saint-Denis: "It's the French, not the English!"
The testimony of the British agents deployed at the event
clashes head-on with the version of the French police
, who justified the use of force and tear gas to prevent fans who arrived late with forged tickets from entering the stadium and who tried to force the doors.
The incidents led to a delay of more than half an hour at the start of the match at the Stade de France.
"I strongly urge UEFA to launch an official investigation to find out what went wrong and why," sport secretary Nadine Dorries said in a statement.
"It is in the interest of everyone involved to understand what happened and draw lessons to prevent these events."
Several Liverpool fans attributed the break-in attempts to local youths who also perpetrated
assaults and robberies on them.
David Hughes, a Liverpool fan who lost his father (Eric Hughes) in the tragic human avalanche that cost 97 lives at the Hillsborough stadium, blamed the French police:
"The easiest thing to do is blame the fans, It's what they always do."
"It all started with the pretense of wanting to fit 20,000 people between two columns in an underpass," Hughes told
The Guardian
.
"I arrived with my daughter three hours before the game and it was clear that the police were not going to be able to deal with the crowd: that ended up being an ambush."
"Liverpool fans were treated in a very aggressive way," British Minister for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis said.
"It is not the first time that something like this has happened outside our borders, we have to learn from what happened and go to the end."
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