(Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron has backed his interior minister in a row over events surrounding and responsibility for chaotic scenes at Sunday’s Champions League Soccer final in Paris.
Gerald Darmanin is under fire over crowd trouble and a heavy-handed police response at European soccer’s season-ending showpiece between Liverpool and Real Madrid, which was delayed by more than 30 minutes after officers forcefully held back people trying to enter the ground.
Riot police tear-gassed fans, including women and children.
Darmanin, who was questioned over the fiasco yesterday by a Senate committee, has blamed Liverpool and its supporters. The English club had failed to manage its fans, tens of thousands of whom had arrived without valid tickets, he said.
That version of events has been challenged by Liverpool fans who attended and by the government’s political opponents, while European soccer’s governing body UEFA has commissioned an independent report into the trouble at the match, which Real won 1-0.
French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, who is also due to be questioned in the Senate, has commissioned a separate report.
The events have become a political issue ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections and embarrassed France, which is due to host the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympic Games in 2024.
Macron “has full confidence in Gerald Darmanin as Interior Minister,” government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire told reporters yesterday.
Darmanin has acknowledged police had been caught off-guard by several hundred local “delinquents” who turned up to cause trouble and said the situation could have been handled better.
But he has also maintained that 30,000-40,000 Liverpool fans arrived at the Stade de France without valid tickets after forgery “on an industrial scale”.
Many Liverpool fans tried to force their way into the ground after organisers lifted a first ticket checkpoint to avoid a crush, according to a report by the Paris police chief to Darmanin seen by Reuters.
Television footage showed images of young men who did not appear to be wearing red Liverpool jerseys jumping the stadium gates as hapless security staff stood by.
Fans outside, including women and youngsters, were tear-gassed by police.
Yann Bastiere, a senior official with the Unite SGP Police union, told Reuters his colleagues had not reported problems with Liverpool fans.
“On the other hand, there was a lot of petty crime. People were attacked, there were robberies. There were (local)delinquents, opportunists, who took advantage of the crowds. Some were trying to get into the stadium. They were jumping over the gates,” Bastiere said.
