UEFA has commissioned an independent report into the events surrounding Saturday’s Champions League final after ticket fraud and crowd trouble marred the showpiece event in Paris, Europe’s soccer governing body said on Monday.
“The comprehensive review will examine decision making, responsibility and behaviours of all entities involved in the final,” UEFA said.
Meanwhile, French authorities defended police on Monday for indiscriminately firing tear gas and pepper spray at Liverpool supporters at the Champions League final, while blaming industrial levels of fraud that saw 30,000 to 40,000 people try to enter the Stade de France with fake tickets or none at all.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin says there was “massive fraud at an industrial level” at the Champions League final in Paris, with 70% of tickets coming into the Stade de France thought to be fake.
After a meeting into Saturday’s chaos, the ministers of the sport and the interior shifted responsibility onto the Liverpool fans while not providing details on how they were sure so many fake tickets were in circulation. People with legitimate tickets bought through Liverpool and UEFA reported struggling to access the stadium.
“There was massive fraud at an industrial level and an organization of fake tickets because of the pre-filtering by the Stade de France and the French Football Federation, 70% of the tickets were fake tickets coming into the Stade de France,” Interior minister Gérald Darmanin said. “Fifteen percent of fake tickets also were after the first filtering … more than 2,600 tickets were confirmed by UEFA as non-validated tickets even though they’d gone through the first filtering.
“A massive presence of these fake tickets of course was the issue why there were delays, three times the beginning of the match was delayed.”
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