Damning UEFA review of 2022 Champions’ League final lambasts French police | OneFootball

The UEFA review regarding the organisational problems in the build-up to the Champions’ League final at the Stade de France makes for damning reading for the French police, according to a report from Le Monde. The outlet adds that the 151-page long report strongly affirms the existence of negligence displayed by the public authorities. The fruits of an 8-month long process demonstrates that there was responsibility that the French authorities should bear for endangering thousands of British and Spanish supporters alike. On May 28th, thousands of Liverpool fans struggled to get inside the ground due to lengthy queues, closed gates and tear-gassing from the French police. Before and after the game, there were reports of Real Madrid and Liverpool fans being subjected to muggings.

The report found that Real Madrid and Liverpool fans did a better job in sensibly ensuring their safety than the authorities who were actually being paid to do so. Furthermore, their unwavering solidarity and ability to discipline themselves in a context so resolutely hostile to them commanded the panel’s admiration. The UEFA review on the events of May 28th found no trace of the “massive and industrial ticket fraud” denounced by France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. The report states that “the problem of counterfeit tickets has been exaggerated” and “that the relevant parties who affirmed these falsehoods, in particular the ministers, the police headquarters, UEFA and the FFF (French FA) acted in an irresponsible way” in order to “exonerate themselves from responsibility for failures.”

The independent UEFA report also lambasts the lack of communication from French authorities during that fateful day. A silence that flamed the fans’ nervousness when they found out that the long queues to get to the Stade de France continued to grow. “I was sure people would be crushed to death”, wrote an English supporter in one of the 700 letters selected by the panel out of the near 8,500 written contributions sent to them.

Exasperated and frightened, British supporters tried to alert those responsible for maintaining order about the risks of a possible crush. In response, they found themselves sprayed with pepper spray – “weapons that have no place in a football context,” according to the investigation – a strategy “totally inappropriate because it was not only disproportionate, but potentially lethal”, noted the panel. They added that not deploying such a strategy was something that any “competent police force” should have known to do. The report chillingly adds that “it is remarkable that nobody lost their life” during the fiasco.

GFFN | Bastien Cheval