And suddenly there was light. After eight months of immense work involving hearings, collecting testimonies and cross-checking information, a panel of independent experts commissioned by UEFA and made up of lawyers, academics and members of supporters’ associations present on May 28, 2022 in Saint-Denis, gave his verdict on the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France. And this one speaks volumes.
The French authorities, because of their total ignorance of the sociology of the supporters they were going to welcome, fantasized about a hooligan threat from another age. This has put in danger thousands of people, almost all peaceful, caught between criminals who came to rob them and police officers overwhelmed by the events, whose only response was to use force with “weapons that have no out of place at a football festival”.
The lies of the French authorities
The report very clearly establishes the discrepancy between the justifications given by both the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, the Paris police prefect Didier Lallement (since exfiltrated at the General Secretariat of the Sea) and UEFA, and the reality . “After seven months of work, it was impossible for us to prove the presence of the 30 to 40,000 supporters without tickets or with counterfeit tickets near the Stade de France. It is also impossible to prove the existence of any massive and industrial fraud, as the Minister of the Interior said, assures Ronan Evain, the director general of the association Football supporters Europe and one of the nine co-authors of the report. Fraud did not exist. It was important to be able to dismantle it because it guided the political discourse of the time to justify the decisions of the French authorities and the police. »
If the Minister of the Interior has since presented a (timid) apology to the supporters nasse by the police, crushed against the gates of the Stade de France, sprayed with tear gas and assaulted by gangs of delinquents, the Labor MP Ian Byrne, present that day with her 70-year-old dad, don’t forget that the French authorities did everything they could to blame them. “It is a huge relief for all the people who, in addition to having lived through hell that day, saw themselves being wrongly accused by the real leaders who had only one thing in mind, to find scapegoats to hide their own incompetence, he thunders. It has now been proven, and this was already the case after the Senate investigation and the hearings conducted there, that the Minister of the Interior and the Prefect of Police lied. We therefore expect a full and complete apology from them today. »
As such, the report also highlights the salutary behavior of many Liverpool supporters who, despite the panic, have prevented even more serious tragedies from occurring. “The French state and UEFA can rejoice – in quotes – that this has not happened to other supporters who, for lack of experience, would have reacted differently. Thanks to their disastrous experience in Hillsborough in 1989, a tragedy that is forever anchored in the memories of Liverpool supporters, they reacted quickly to prevent people from leaving their lives in Saint-Denis, “said the MP for West Derby, constituency which adjoins Anfield.
UEFA not spared from investigation report
Present during the hearings held in the Senate last June, Michel Savin, Senator Les Républicains de l’Isère, welcomes this report which “confirms the work and the conclusions of the Senate as well as our doubts and our reservations as to the explanations given to the times by the Minister of the Interior or the Paris Prefect of Police about their own responsibilities. For him, “the conclusions of this report and its legitimacy are absolutely indisputable”. “I want proof that it was commissioned by UEFA itself and that it is not spared by the panel of experts,” he adds.
Indeed, contrary to what emerged from the Senate hearings, the body in charge of European football bears, according to the rapporteurs, the main responsibility for the failures which almost led to disaster. The report speaks bluntly of an “unacceptable abdication of responsibility on the part of UEFA” which, “by delegating safety and security to the French Football Federation and relying on the prefecture of police for the tasks law enforcement, without clearly and effectively asserting its own role, sought to isolate itself from anything that could go wrong”.
“It raises the question of the power that UEFA has over the host countries when they take decisions that go against the safety of the supporters”, estimates Ronan Evain, who however welcomes “the effort of transparency of the instance ”, who did not hesitate to finance herself to the tune of 617,000 euros a report in which she knew she was going to be turned on. According The worldUEFA’s Greek General Secretary, Theodore Theodoridis, and his deputies admitted to the rapporteurs “that UEFA’s model is perhaps imperfect” and they undertake “to implement the key recommendations” of the report to “improve the safety of supporters at future events”.
The radio silence of the French authorities
In addition, UEFA will soon announce the establishment of a special reimbursement mechanism for supporters who had to suffer from the fiasco of May 28, 2022. “We have received a commitment from UEFA for the implementation implementation of a certain number of our 21 recommendations, it therefore seems to be going in the right direction,” confirms Ronan Evain. It remains to be seen what will happen on the side of the French authorities, the Ministry of the Interior and the police headquarters in mind. Contacted by 20 minutesneither of them have yet responded to our requests.
For Michel Savin, it is no longer a question of hiding behind his little finger. “We have to be able to recognize certain failures and dysfunctions. Not to point the finger at so and so, but to prevent it from happening again, especially with a view to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games so that this type of slippage never takes place in our country. I just don’t want this all to end up in a drawer. We must know how to recognize our faults and that all the protagonists learn from them in order to move forward. ” This is also what Ian Byrne wants, who calls for “the trauma experienced by Liverpool and Real Madrid supporters, some of whom have suffered physical and psychological consequences until today. [deux d’entre eux se sont depuis donné la mort]was of no use”.