After the chaos of Saturday, the first explanations. The French Ministry of Sports brought together this Monday morning for more than two hours the organizers of the Champions League final, the Ministry of the Interior, the police and the local authorities to “learn the lessons” of a fiasco which occurs two years from the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“A massive and organized fraud of counterfeit notes”, denounced at the end of this long meeting of more than two hours the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. The tenant of Place Beauvau spoke of regrets and deplored “a disorganization in the reception of English supporters” and not the Spaniards. According to the minister, the “supernumerary presence” of British supporters added to the RER B strike, which forced users to take the RER D and a narrower exit.
Still according to Darmanin, at 9 p.m., 97% of Spanish supporters were in their stands. But only 50% of the English were in theirs, the fault of the disorganization linked to fraud with counterfeit notes. “30,000 to 40,000 English supporters found themselves at the Stade de France, either without tickets or with falsified tickets,” added the Minister of the Interior. According to the Minister of Sports, 2700 people, whose real tickets have not been activated, should be reimbursed.
At the end of this meeting, Amélie Oudéa-Castera also announced an in-depth investigation by UEFA. But the minister said she had “the feeling that we must not forget that this match could still be played (…) without casualties and without serious injuries (…) and no violence between supporters”. She added that she wants in the future “to strengthen the management of this kind of event”.
The priority was to “identify” the main “dysfunctions”, had indicated a little earlier the new Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, who must manage her first crisis. Because even if there were no serious injuries, the questions abound. How was the party spoiled when nearly 7,000 police, gendarmes and firefighters were mobilized?
A “disastrous management”
The questions also come from England, where the supporters, back from Paris, the Liverpool club, just like the mayor of the city, Joanne Anderson, “disgusted by the calamitous management”, did not take off. The questioning by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, of “thousands of English supporters without tickets or with counterfeit tickets who forced entry”, does not pass with the British authorities. According to the Liverpool police, present around the Stade de France, “the vast majority” of English supporters “behaved in an exemplary manner”.
Asked about RTL, Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was no more tender towards the Liverpool club, accusing him of having “left his supporters in the wild” unlike Real Madrid, which accompanied his supporters from start to finish. In a report submitted on Sunday, the prefect of police of Paris, Didier Lallement, estimates the number of spectators who showed up “probably between 30,000 and 40,000 people beyond the 80,000 admissible in the stadium”.
Asked specifically about the proportion of counterfeit notes in the 30,000 to 40,000 cited since Sunday, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra did not give a figure.