The final started more than half an hour late due to major problems with access to the stadium in Saint-Denis by some supporters.
Finally football. After the chaos to gain access to the Stade de France, which spoiled the party involving tens of thousands of supporters, the dream Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid started on Saturday 36 minutes late.
Tear gas, intrusion attempts by climbing barriers, crowds gathered and impatient… The atmosphere did not rise as hoped, during the hours preceding the most important match of the season.
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After 9:00 p.m., the time initially planned for kick-off, an AFP journalist noted various intrusions at the level of the stadium forecourt, at least twenty young people having managed to pass. Earlier, others tried to force a first filtering barrage of police.
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Tear gas thrown at ticketless fans
Tear gas was fired to prevent a few dozen individuals from climbing barriers, AFP noted. “Do not force entry to the Stade de France“, warned on Twitter in French, English and Spanish the Paris Police Prefecture, which had deployed 6,800 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters to ensure the security of the match, with an eye on the thousands of fans of the “Redscame without tickets.
Write well that it is not the Liverpool supporters who have caused the mess, it is people from here who do not have tickets
A Liverpool supporter
Still far from the turnstiles of the south entrance at the scheduled kick-off time, an English supporter calls out to the journalists on the other side of the gate and shows his ticket: “Write well that it is not the Liverpool supporters who have caused the mess, it is people from here who do not have tickets and who are trying to return“. At his side, another fan shows his bloody hand and explains that he was attacked. “We got gassed, it’s a shame“, he vociferates.
A few meters away, a young man in jeans and a black t-shirt manages to climb the gate, shakes off the two stewards who are trying to stop him and spins full speed down one of the large stairs leading to the upper tiers. Before being stopped by… a Liverpool fan. On the forecourt, clusters of people come and go, congregate near the entrances, preventing ticket holders from entering as the match is about to begin.
Faced with the wait, the Liverpool players returned from the locker room and resumed their warm-up on the lawn at 9:07 p.m. Their Madrid opponents followed them a few minutes later. After about ten minutes on the pitch, in a surreal atmosphere, they returned to the locker room.
Nearly 60,000 English fans, including two thirds without tickets, swept through Paris and Saint-Denis for the event. The authorities had called on spectators to come to the stadium as much as possible because of the strike movement which affects line B of the RER. At the start of the evening, the Liverpool team bus had difficulty reaching the Stade de France car park due to the crowds, Jürgen Klopp’s team arrived several minutes late on the initial schedule.
This setback spoils the great party that started during the day in Paris and Saint-Denis, in the fan zones of the two teams. Nearly 30,000 fans of the “Reds” notably painted the course of Vincennes, in the French capital, red in a good-natured atmosphere.