Europe’s biggest night of football turned sour for Liverpool fans

The scenes outside the Stade de France in Paris for the Champions League final could have led to disaster, writes Ben Burrows

French police sprayed teargas at Liverpool fans outside the Stade de France on Saturday (Getty)

The biggest game in European football was overshadowed by events that happened outside of its stadium in Paris.

Real Madrid are European champions for a record-extending 14th time after they beat Liverpool 1-0 in Saturday evening’s Champions League final at the Stade de France.

But questions over how matters outside the ground unfolded will go on far longer than any post-mortems of what happened on the pitch.

Thousands of Liverpool supporters were unable to get into the stadium to watch the game, with witnesses describing a shambolic and downright dangerous procedure from those policing the ground.

The problems started at Liverpool’s end of the stadium, where police had parked vans and created a bottleneck through which thousands of Reds supporters were expected to funnel through. This led to long queues and the very real chance of crushes.

Some there were getting admitted inside, but around the stadium there were long queues of fans that were effectively locked out entirely. Those there describe teargas being used repeatedly which caused even stewards and security staff working to disperse and cover their mouths.

Despite this, fans remained calm amid an increasingly tense atmosphere. Many were coughing and retching, while, in at least one case, journalists attempting to film the scenes were threatened with losing their media accreditation if they did not stop.

The game would eventually kick-off after a lengthy delay as Uefa leapt to pin the blame on English fans supposedly arriving late to the ground, while French authorities have since pointed to an “industrial level” of fraud and reams of fake tickets. Both claims have been rubbished by eyewitnesses on the ground.

There is a relief among those present that the evening avoided true disaster, as the numerous testimonies since attest to the very real fears of what might have been.

Liverpool’s hopes of a seventh European Cup are over. Questions over the treatment of so many of their supporters in Paris are far from over.

Yours,

Ben Burrows

Sports editor