One of the main claims made by French officials to explain the chaotic crowd scenes that created a dangerous fall in love with fans outside last weekend’s Champions League final near Paris has been that tens of thousands of people came to the party with fake tickets.
France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has claimed that up to 70 percent of the tickets presented at the Stade de France in St. Denis were fake. He told a news conference on Monday that the “root cause” of the chaos was between 30,000 and 40,000 English fans carrying fake tickets – or no tickets – that blocked tickets.
But according to official numbers reviewed by The New York Times, the exact number of counterfeit banknotes intercepted by the administrators managing the front doors was much lower: 2,589, to be exact.
This figure is almost three times the usual number of fakes in the Champions League final, a match widely regarded as the equivalent of European Super Bowl football, but much lower than the figure used by Darmanin, who did not play until Wednesday. had provided details on the source of his estimate.
Darmanin and French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who has made similar claims about fake tickets, have faced growing criticism for managing the game. French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday called for “full transparency” in an investigation into party day scenes and their causes. In an appearance before a French Senate committee on Wednesday, Darmanin admitted: “It’s clear that things could have been better organized.”
“It is clear,” he added, “that this celebration of sport has been ruined.”
In what turned out to be a difficult appearance before the committee, Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra came under sustained pressure due to organizational failures. In response, they largely repeated the language that has angered Liverpool, its supporters and members of the British government.
At one point, Oudéa-Castéra told lawmakers that Liverpool fans had a “very specific risk” in the opinion of the French authorities, without explaining what he meant.
Darmanin, for his part, insisted that the numbers of counterfeit tickets were on an unprecedented scale, saying that at one point there were so many that the stadium security guards thought that their tools for validate them were defective.
The hearing lasted more than an hour, ended with little clarity and a duplication by officials of their previous statements, again with no evidence to support their conclusions.
This prompted a lawmaker to ask: “Since Saturday, we have blamed Liverpool and club fans, striking workers and locals for the chaos. What allows you to make these statements without a thorough investigation?
Not all attendees had the same experience in the final. While most Real Madrid fans arrived with electronic tickets, Liverpool asked for paper for their official allocation of 23,000 tickets. These tickets were embedded with two main security features: one that had to be confirmed with a chemical pen and a second that was a laser engraving of the Champions League trophy.
Those with tickets without the two security features were denied access by commissioners at an initial checkpoint away from the stadium barcode readers. But this system collapsed under a deluge of fans: to alleviate the growing crushing crowd, officials abandoned those first controls and allowed the crowd to approach the stadium.
The debacle has provoked a barrage of criticism of security in the match, in which Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 1-0 to secure their 14th European title record. Liverpool police who assisted in supporting roles called the situation outside the doors “shocking”. The club, its fans and a European supporters club called for investigations even though the match was underway. And in the days that followed, British government officials demanded answers from their French counterparts and the governing body of European football, UEFA, for the treatment of thousands of Liverpool fans.
Fans faced multiple problems, including dangerous crushing, after being locked up in tight spaces, and the final was delayed by more than 30 minutes as French riot police used tear gas and pepper spray on fans. after seeming to lose control of the situation. At the same time, hundreds of young locals tried to force their way into the stadium, either through turnstiles or by climbing through security fences. Officials estimated that up to 4,000 people without a ticket could have been successful.
Part of the explanation for why Liverpool fans found themselves trapped in such a small space has now become a transport issue on match day, including a workers’ strike that affected one of the main rail links to Liverpool. ‘stay.
UEFA and local authorities have compared the travel figures for Saturday’s match with those for the final of the French Cup held at the Stade de France on 7 May. They found that one of the stations closest to the Stade de France had four times as many fans traveling through its doors on Saturday as it had used the station during the French Cup final. This, they believe, contributed to the dangerous bottleneck of the fans.
It may be months before a full picture of what happened at the stadium comes out. On Tuesday, UEFA, which was surprised by the chaotic scenes of last year’s European Championship final in London, as well as the recent Europa League final in Seville, Spain, appointed a former ‘Education of Portugal, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, to lead an independent investigation into failures. around the Champions League final.
The claims of French government officials, however, continue to outrage Liverpool and its ownership. The president of the club, Tom Werner, said this in a caustic letter to Oudéa-Castéra, the French Minister of Sports.
He wrote, “he said. “Adequate, formal and independent investigation.
He denounced the “loose data and unverified claims” presented to reporters on Monday before an investigation took place.
“The fact that your public position goes against this goal is a concern in itself,” he added. “Doing so without any recourse to ourselves or our followers is even greater. All voices should count in this process, and they should count equally and fairly.”
In addition to attacking Oudéa-Castéra for his claims, Werner also apologized publicly. By late Tuesday, Oudéa-Castéra’s tone, though not his claims about counterfeit notes, had changed.
“The subject of fake tickets doesn’t change that: Liverpool are one of the biggest clubs in history,” he wrote on Twitter. “And on Saturday there were fans with valid tickets who had a terrible afternoon or could not watch the game. We are sorry”.
Liverpool continues to be flooded with video recordings recorded with mobile phones by its fans. The images, many of which have also been posted on social media, are sometimes creepy and show children and older fans dealing with the effects of tear gas fired, sometimes indiscriminately, by riot police.
Real Madrid fans faced similar problems at their side of the stadium. Since the final, several fans have come forward to say they were assaulted or robbed as they entered and left the stadium.
Amando Sanchez, 51, who traveled to Paris in a group of 14, mostly relatives, said his father, 87, and an older brother missed the game as a result of the chaos at the gates of the city. ‘entrance. Another brother, Sanchez said, struggled to steal his ticket as he prepared to present it to a stadium turnstile.
“Nobody really was in the lead,” Sanchez said in an interview Wednesday.