Liverpool fans unfairly blamed for Champions League chaos, French senate report finds

Liverpool supporters were unfairly and wrongly blamed for the chaotic scenes at the Champions League final in Paris last season to “divert attention” from the real failure of the state and organisers, a French senate report has found.

The final on 28 May against Real Madrid was delayed by more than 30 minutes after French police forcefully held back people trying to enter the Stade de France. Liverpool fans, including children, were teargassed – some were sprayed directly in the face. Many Liverpool fans complained of being shoved, assaulted, almost crushed and pickpocketed in chaotic scenes around the stadium which were slammed by opposition politicians as a scandal that seriously damaged France’s image abroad.

The French senate, after weeks of testimony and questioning senior ministers and the Paris police chief, concluded in a preliminary report on Wednesday that the chaos was caused by a “chain of events and malfunctions” by different authorities and the French state in the run-up to the final and on the night. There had been clear “failings” in the preparation and a lack of coordination of different authorities and organisers, the senate found.

The report made clear it had been unacceptable for the state to initially suggest the chaos was the fault of Liverpool supporters. The senate said Liverpool fans had initially been “unfairly” blamed by the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, in order to “divert attention from the inability of the state to adequately manage the crowds present” as well as the state’s “failure to curb” the actions of “several hundred violent and coordinated” delinquents who mugged and pickpocketed supporters outside the stadium.

Crucially, the report highlighted intelligence failings which showed how French police had misjudged Liverpool fans and had a totally outdated view of them. The report found that the organisation of security for the match was “founded on a dated vision of British supporters, harking back to the hooligans of the 1980s”. It added that public authorities therefore almost exclusively approached the match in terms of the “crowd control” of English supporters.

The senate found “major shortcomings on intelligence” – noting that on the night of the final there had been “an absence of hooligans” and instead, at a local French level, a “presence of delinquents in large numbers”. Between 300 and 400 petty criminals pickpocketed and mugged supporters before and after the match, according to the report. The senators said this should have been prevented by local French intelligence, because criminals had been seen gathering in the area days before.

At a press conference, the senators in charge of the inquiry said the French interior minister’s tweets on the night – in which he suggested that the reasons for the chaos were the massive numbers of Liverpool supporters and very large numbers of fake tickets – “did not correspond to the truth” and was a “partial and imprecise analysis”.

The centrist senator Laurent Lafon later told a French radio station, France Inter, that the number of Liverpool supporters was “not the cause” of the dysfunction, which was instead down to poorly coordinated administrative decisions and poor planning.

Lafon also told a senate press conference that he would say to Liverpool supporters today: “Clearly we express our regret and apologies for what happened.”

Lafon said Liverpool fans were “really the victims of what happened”. He said there was a diplomatic imperative now for the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the French prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, to acknowledge this and to “address a message to the spectators and authorities” in the UK.

The senate report found: “The political will to make the presence of British supporters appear as the only cause of the chaos at the Stade de France – which was perhaps intended to mask the poor organisational choices – is in no way acceptable.”

The senate found there had been a failure to anticipate transport flows of supporters on the night, and the decision to run checks on ticket validity at pre-screening security points near the stadium had led to checkpoints becoming blocked and overcrowded. This was in part because police were using blocking tactics designed for anti-terrorism operations.

Officials had revealed during senate questioning that two French police officers were being investigated for disproportionate use of teargas against Liverpool supporters. The report found that police had used teargas to try to push back the crowd. It said: “This method, which affects people who are present, beyond those who are being targeted, appeared particularly aggressive to supporters coming from countries where it is not practised.” The report said that the teargas “had contributed to a feeling among supporters that excessive force, or even police violence, had been used against them”.

The report made several recommendations for organising future sporting events, including better ticketing procedures, improved training of stewards, and coordination between stewards and police.