France's sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera has blamed ticketless Liverpool supporters for the chaos ahead of the Champions League final in Paris on Saturday.
The Reds were defeated 1-0 by Real Madrid at the Stade de France over the weekend, but the football became a mere sideshow amid organisational issues outside the ground and footage of supporters being pepper-sprayed by authorities.
Kick-off was delayed by 30 minutes as a result and, while the club have requested a formal investigation into events, the French government continue to push the blame onto supporters.
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Oudea-Castera insists a "mass gathering" of fans without tickets, or with fake tickets, caused the unsavoury scenes. She was speaking ahead of a meeting on Monday with the French sports ministry, UEFA and local authorities.
"What happened, first of all, was this mass gathering of the British supporters of the Liverpool club, without tickets, or with fake tickets," she told French radio station RTL.
"When there are that many people by the entrance to the stadium, there will be people trying to force their way in through the doors of the Stade de France, and a certain number of youths from the nearby area who were present tried to get in by mixing in with the crowd.
“The fact that the Real Madrid club has supervised the coming of its supporters to Paris to such an extent, by scheduling buses from the airport and organizing everything from start to finish — which contrasted sharply with what the Liverpool club did, letting its supporters out in the wild — made a huge difference."
Merseyside Police praised fans for their 'exemplary' behaviour under difficult circumstances, while MP Ian Byrne has also called for an investigation into the events on Saturday.
