Liverpool FC fans have called on World Rugby and the International Olympic Committee to strip the Stade de France of hosting their showpiece events.
LFC fans will appear at the French Senate on Tuesday, June 21 where the "horrendous" scale of the treatment by French authorities will be laid bare. Ted Morris and Joe Blott, the respective chairs of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association and the Spirit of Shankly fan group, will tell parliamentarians the "stadium is not suitable to hold those two massive events".
Mr Morris has compiled a record of the "traumatic" experiences endured by disabled fans which include: disabled children being teargassed; a wheelchair user being crowd-surfed to safety over a fence; a blind fan being separated from their carer; a disabled woman suffering a dislocated shoulder; and a “grotesque” attack on a disabled woman as she left the stadium.
READ MORE: Disabled Liverpool FC fan 'feared for his life' as gangs of locals targeted unprotected supporters
Mr Morris previously told the ECHO it was the "most terrifying experience" and he feared for his life as gangs of locals targeted helpless fans as they left the stadium. Speaking to the Telegraph, Mr Morris said: “The authorities failed massively.
"I’ve emailed Lord Coe and Sir Bill Beaumont as well because I am of the opinion the stadium is not suitable to hold those two massive events after what happened to us. It was just horrendous.”
The Stade de France is due to hold the Rugby World Cup semi-finals and final in 2023 and the Olympic athletics events in 2024. Morris and Blott are due to appear at 4.30pm on Tuesday as part of an inquiry by France’s Law Commission to refute various post-match claims by the French authorities.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin claimed sections of the LFC fans posed "public order problems" and 30-40,000 extra fans had gone to the match without proper tickets.
Mr Morris said: “We will bring the issue of disability to the French Senate and call out the untruths. Our disabled supporters suffered greatly in Paris. The French have tried to use a narrative and playbook that has haunted this football club. And they have done it without basis or substance.
“We had nine games in Europe last season – there was not one single arrest. We went there for a festival of sport. There are a lot of people affected by this and we can’t allow this narrative to gain any more traction.
"We will provide testimonies of some of the horrendous experiences of our disabled supporters – families and children as young as eight. We hope to get some answers. We need to go there and tell the truth about what happened.”
Morris said that it was “quite unheard of” for fan representatives to be invited to the French Senate and they were “grateful” for the opportunity.
Mr Darmanin has subsequently recognised some errors were made by authorities. He said: “I would like to express our regret with regard to the organisation of the final because some people were not able to see the whole of the match. I deplore the errors which took place before.”
There were numerous eyewitness accounts of major congestion problems on the approach to the stadium and patient fans being locked out for almost an hour. There were also multiple reports of how local gangs assaulted and robbed supporters making their way back to coaches and trains after the match.
Didier Lallement, the head of Paris police, has since admitted he may have falsely stated up to 40,000 Liverpool supporters tried to get into the stadium with fake tickets. He said: “Perhaps I made a mistake with the figure I gave to the minister."
The police chief also acknowledged there were not 30-40,000 “at the gates of the stadium” but maintained many thousands were in the vicinity. He added: “It is obviously a failure because people were pushed and attacked. It’s a failure because the image of the country was undermined.”
The Telegraph contacted the operators of the Stade de France for comment. The stadium is owned by the French government and France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said “the priority now is to identify very precisely what went wrong … in order to learn all the lessons so that such incidents do not happen again at our future major international sporting events”.
