France has learned “lessons” from the chaotic scenes around last year’s Champions League final in Paris for which UEFA has said it bears primary responsibility, Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said Sunday.
Real Madrid’s 1-0 victory over Liverpool at the Stade de France on May 28, 2022, was overshadowed by a 37-minute delay to kick-off as fans struggled to access the stadium after being funnelled into overcrowded bottlenecks on the approach.
Police then fired tear gas at thousands of supporters locked behind metal fences.
The images were not the ones France wished to be beamed round the world with them due to host the Rugby World Cup this year and the Olympics and Paralympics in 2024.
The Stade de France will be one of the venues for both sporting showpieces.
“We’ve shown that we are working to learn absolutely all the lessons from that,” Oudea-Castera told reporters on the sidelines of the World Ski Championships in Courchevel.
Lessons to be learned involved “crowd flow management, the deployment of security forces, the mobilisation of private security companies and crime prevention plans”, she said.
The initial reaction of European football chiefs was to blame Liverpool fans for the disorder, but the sheer volume of social media testimony by supporters and independent journalists meant this position unravelled quickly.
An independent report, commissioned by European governing body UEFA and released Monday, found they bore “primary responsibility” for failings in planning, security and policing.
French police and authorities were also criticised for a heavy-handed response to supporters, based on incorrect assumptions that fans posed a threat to public order.
UEFA had initially tried to pin the blame on Liverpool fans arriving late despite thousands having been held for hours outside the stadium before kick-off.
The French authorities then claimed an “industrial scale fraud” of fake tickets was the problem.
But a French Senate enquiry in July found that poorly-executed security arrangements were the cause of the mayhem.
Images of the final tarnished France’s reputation for holding major sports events.
“We are very hard at work with (Interior Minister) Gerald Darmanin on all these issues, both for the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Oudea-Castera added.
“We have learned all the lessons and we will deliver major international sporting events.”
