Delayed match, dangerously compressed crowds, tear gas… the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid on Saturday May 28 turned into chaos for the supporters and a nightmare for the French government and the Union of European Associations of football (UEFA), organizer of the event. For the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the main reason for this fiasco is the existence of a “industrial counterfeit banknote fraud”. What really happened?
Our investigation reveals that if the presence of supporters without tickets or with a fake ticket was very real on May 28, and moreover planned by the French authorities, this is not what caused the incidents that occurred around the Stadium. of France, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Thanks to hundreds of photos and videos of the events published on social networks, the video investigation unit of the Monde was able to reconstruct the sequence of events and the routes taken by the thousands of supporters that evening. Documents as close as possible to the events, which reveal an erratic reception system and the inadequacy of the maintenance of order around the stadium.