Champions League f inal delayed amid ‘shambolic’ scenes at Paris stadium
THERE were scenes of chaos at the Champions League final last night as thousands of fans were kept out of the Stade de France stadium following a delayed start.
Liverpool fans were peppersprayed by security guards and footage on social media showed supporters being wrestled to the ground by stewards as they clambered over fences.
Huge crowds of British supporters queued at ticket entry points where French police had imposed draconian security blockades after officials put the kick-off back by half an hour.
Heavy traffic left the Liverpool bus trapped approaching the ground, which added to the pandemonium. The game eventually began 37 minutes late. It ended in a 1-0 defeat for the British team.
BBC presenter Gary Lineker, who was caught in the mayhem outside the stadium, described the situation as ‘absolute carnage’.
He added: ‘I am not sure it’s possible to have a more poorly organised event if you tried. Absolutely shambolic and dangerous.’
Witnesses said police vans were used to funnel a key route into the 81,000-capacity stadium, sending thousands of fans into a narrow underpass.
Rob Draper, The Mail on Sunday’s Chief Football Writer, said: ‘I suspect this is an over-reaction to the
Euro 2020 final chaos at Wembley and fans stampeding gates. But I despair that in 2022 authorities still can’t get this right.’
Elsewhere in Paris, French riot police with batons and shields were caught on camera attacking Liverpool supporters watching the final in a dedicated fan zone. ‘The police came at the fans with batons and shields,’ said one onlooker.
As the match approached halftime, social media footage showed that many Liverpool supporters were still stranded outside. Some of the fans, including women and young girls, were still coughing and wiping their faces after being sprayed with tear gas by French security guards.
‘We were delayed probably 500 metres from the stadium with the passage blocked because of loads of vehicles,’ said one. ‘Now we are being tear-gassed, and there’s no reason why we are being teargassed, and no reason for the delay.’
Mark Ogden, a senior writer for the ESPN news channel, said on a video posted on Twitter as he stood near a queue of fans: ‘There’s people in tears behind the gates, girls in tears who have been teargassed or pepper-sprayed. This is now 20 minutes after the game has started.’ Liverpool defender Joel Matip’s pregnant sister-in-law was forced to seek refuge from the mayhem inside a restaurant while retired player Alan Kennedy, 67, who twice won the European Cup with Liverpool, had to be hauled over a fence to safety. Inside the stadium, Liverpool fans booed when a public announcement blamed late arrival of fans for the delayed kick-off.
Witnesses claimed fans had been forced to wait for hours for tickets to be checked. BBC sports journalist Nick Parrot said security staff had charged at some fans and used pepper spray. ‘I have just been pepper-sprayed for the first time in my life,’ he told BBC Radio 5 Live. ‘I have been to the Champions League final before and I have never been pepper-sprayed before.
‘I was outside Gate Y, which has been opening and closing repeatedly over the last hour and a half, but nobody’s been going through. Security staff on the other side advanced and sprayed pepper spray.’
In one video posted online, security staff were seen pepper-spraying fans, including a teenage girl, who were holding up their tickets behind a steel fence.
The girl pulled her Liverpool shirt over her face to protect her eyes.
Some Liverpool fans were seen climbing over a 12ft fence and sprinting into the stadium. Separately, a group was spotted waiting to leap over a stadium wall.
It came as ex-Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish laid a wreath in the Stade de France to mark the 37th anniversary of the Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels in 1995.
‘Fans wrestled to the ground by stewards’