According to Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, France has learnt “lessons” from the catastrophic scenes surrounding last year’s Champions League final in Paris, for which UEFA has stated that it bears primary responsibility. Real Madrid’s 1-0 triumph over Liverpool at the Stade de France on May 28, 2022, was marred by a 37-minute delay in kick-off as spectators battled to gain access after being funnelled into packed bottlenecks on the approach.
France Learned From Champions League Final Chaos
Police then used tear gas on thousands of supporters surrounded by metal fences. The photographs were not the ones France wanted broadcast throughout the world as they prepared to host the Rugby World Cup this year and the Olympics and Paralympics in 2024. These sporting spectacles will take place in the Stade de France. “We’ve demonstrated that we are working hard to absorb completely all of the lessons,” Oudea-Castera told reporters on the sidelines of the World Ski Championships in Courchevel.
“Crowd flow management, the deployment of security forces, the mobilization of private security organizations. She said that crime prevention strategies” were among the lessons to be learnt. The immediate reaction of European football officials was to blame Liverpool fans for the disorder. However, the sheer number of social media testimony from supporters and independent journalists swiftly dispelled this position.
They had “major responsibility” for errors in planning, security, and police, according to an independent assessment commissioned by the European governing body UEFA and released Monday. French police and authorities were also chastised for their heavy-handed approach to supporters, predicated on the mistaken notion that supporters constituted a threat to public order.
UEFA first tried to blame late Liverpool fans, despite thousands being kept for hours outside the stadium before kick-off. The French authorities then claimed that the problem was “industrial scale fraud” of phoney tickets. Yet, in July, a French Senate investigation concluded that shoddy security procedures were to blame for the chaos. The final’s images harmed France’s reputation for hosting important sporting events.
