PARIS: The French government on Monday blamed massive ticket fraud and Liverpool’s handling of its fans for the crowd trouble which marred the club’s Champions League final against Real Madrid over the weekend and raised questions over the capacity of Paris to host the 2024 Olympics.

The French government has faced a barrage of criticism from press and politicians in Britain over policing of the match on Saturday, which saw thousands of Liverpool fans with tickets struggle to enter.

But as a blame-game over the fiasco continued into Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the scenes outside the national stadium, which saw some fans including children teargassed by French police, as deeply upsetting.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Liverpool had provided its supporters with paper tickets, and not electronic, which allowed for the possibility of what he described as a “massive fraud on an industrial scale”.

More than two thirds of the tickets presented by some 62,000 Liverpool supporters had been fakes, the minister added.

“I want to say once again that the decisions taken prevented deaths or serious injury,” Darmanin told reporters after holding an emergency meeting on Monday.

Darmanin added that there had been 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans with fake tickets or without tickets outside the Stade de France.

“I remind you that the Liverpool coach several days ago — and it’s public — called on supporters to come to France even without a ticket,” Darmanin said.

The match was delayed by more than 35 minutes after police tried to hold back people attempting to force their way into the national stadium without tickets. Some ticket holders complained that they were not let in.

Television footage showed images of young men who did not appear to be wearing red Liverpool jerseys jumping the gates of the stadium and running away from security to get into the match. Others outside, including women and youngsters, were tear-gassed by riot police.

The crowd trouble has become a political issue ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections and embarassed France which hosts the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympic Games in 2024.

“The images are lamentable, they are disturbing because we can clearly see that we are not prepared for events such as the Olympic Games”, said far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon on Sunday, while his far-right rival Marine Le Pen called the incident a “humiliation” for France.

Liverpool Chief Executive Billy Hogan has said the club wants a “transparent investigation” by governing body UEFA.

Britain’s Johnson was hugely disappointed by how Liverpool fans were treated at the Champions League final in Paris, his spokesman said.

“The footage from the Stade de France this weekend was deeply upsetting and concerning. We know many Liverpool fans travelled to Paris in good time ... and we’re hugely disappointed by how they were treated,” the spokesman told reporters in London.

“We are urging UEFA to work closely with the French authorities on a full investigation and to publish those findings. Fans deserve to know what happened.”

The chaos inevitably brought back painful memories for Liverpool, a club haunted by the 1989 Hillsborough disaster which cost the lives of 97 people in a stadium crush.

Labour MP for Liverpool area Ian Byrne, who was present at the match, told Sky News that the fans had been treated “like animals”.

“It was horrific — there’s no other words to describe it. It was absolutely horrific and as someone who was at Hillsborough in 1989, it brought so many terrible memories flooding back,” he said.

The mayor of Liverpool, Joanne Anderson, who was also at the scene, told the BBC that it was “absolutely shambolic but also the police behaviour was also really brutal.”

Leading French daily Le Monde echoed the British complaints Monday, saying the French authorities were “in denial” about their shortcomings that had turned the event into a “fiasco”.

Darmanin said there were no problems with Real Madrid supporters at Saturday’s match, most of whom he said had received electronic tickets, and that the Spanish side had managed to control their travelling fans better than Liverpool.

He acknowledged that police had been caught off-guard by local delinquents who turned up to cause trouble at the match. But defending the security protocols in place, the minister said France had only had three months to prepare after the venue was moved from Russia.

Earlier, Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera acknowledged that France nevertheless had to examine stepping up security at high-risk football matches, after crowd chaos also erupted on Sunday after St Etienne were relegated from France’s Ligue 1.

Oudea-Castera said French authorities were “extremely sorry” for the approximately 2,700 fans with tickets that were unable to enter the Stade de France because of the crowd problems.

She said French authorities had agreed with UEFA that they should be identified and receive compensation but insisted France was capable of hosting major sporting events.

“I am not worried, I am very committed that we learn absolutely all the lessons from what happened on Saturday evening to improve everything,” she said.

Paris had been awarded the final three months ago after Saint Petersburg was stripped of the event because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2022