A damning report into the Champions League Final in Paris has found "systematic failings in the organisation".
The Prime Minister of France commissioned a report into the treatment of fans in the build up and aftermath of the Paris Final after Liverpool fans were tear-gassed and pushed into bottlenecks by French Police. The author of the 30-page report, Michel Cadot, said the claims of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, that as many as 40,000 Liverpool fans were to blame for the chaos should be "relativised".
Evidence also suggested it was a breakdown in communication between authorities, and the failure to recognise “serious failings” in the kettling of fans and at malfunctioning entry gates, which caused the horrendous scenes, MirrorOnline reports.
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French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne accepted and immediately published the report on Friday, June 10, as a full and final account of the events at the Stade de France, with no appeal by the authorities responsible.
In the report, Cadot, a senior police officer in France, deplored “severe failings” in the action of the police and the ground controllers at the stadium. He found the organisation broke down because of “several flaws in the directing and management of the crowd”, including in the corralling of supporters at initial checkpoints on the perimeter of the stadium.
The report said the kettling of fans down from thousands into a virtual single file was dangerous, and “police failed to read the warning signs” of the potential for danger. It also stated there was a lack of communication between the checkpoints and command posts at the stadium, resulting in serious bottlenecks which threatened the safety of the crowd.
Cadot found there was no sufficient communication with the command posts and the Paris transport networks, again resulting in serious bottlenecks, because the routes to the stadium were not properly signposted, leading to fans converging on one entry point.
Cadot also found no evidence of 40,000 people trying to invade the stadium without tickets, and in fact, pointed out that even if this was the case, the authorities should have been prepared, and able to deal with such numbers.
The report read: “The claims communicated (by Lallement and Darmanin) are not corroborated by technical sensors which allow objective results. The arrival in town of many supporters without a ticket does not systematically lead to disorder.
"At the last Europa League final, in Seville, there were no incidents, even though thousands of supporters of the two teams - a number estimated at 130,000 for a stadium with a capacity of 57,600 seats - were not ticket holders."
Paris is to play host to the 2023 Rugby World Cup and 2024 Olympics. The report makes five recommendations, including the creation of a national committee to pilot major international sporting events, and the introduction of fully electronic tickets to reduce the risks of fraud.
In a first reaction, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said she had asked the interior and sports ministers "to take up the recommendations to put them in place without delay".
