Would the authorities have a problem with the numbers? Since the Champions League final between Liverpool FC and Real Madrid on Saturday evening at the Stade de France, the Government and the Paris Police Headquarters have jumped from one argument to another to justify the chaotic management of the flow of supporters English around the stadium.
Postponement of the match, child victims of tear gas, crowds of supporters… After accusing the Liverpuldiens of showing up too late, then the RATP strike, the Government highlights the presence of thousands of supporters with fake tickets or without tickets which had to be turned back and which would be the reason for this organizational berezina.
This Monday morning, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister of Sports, assessed this morning on RTL between 30 and 40,000 the number of Liverpool supporters in this case. A figure repeated by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, during a press conference at the beginning of the afternoon, citing “a massive presence of counterfeit banknotes” even advancing the figure of “70% of counterfeit banknotes in the entrance to the Stade de France”, the “root evil” of events. An assessment rejected by those present on the spot.
FAKE OFF
The figure put forward by the authorities seems very strongly overvalued. About 60,000 English supporters were expected in Paris for this Champions League final. A large number of them did not have a ticket for the match since 22,000 were allocated to Liverpool (the same number as for the Madrid club). The rest of the places were available to UEFA for sale, invitations etc. According to Football Supporters Europe (FSE), an association which brings together football supporters and is present in more than fifty countries, the number of English supporters with a ticket stands at 26,000.
To manage all those who came without tickets, a habit for English supporters during European matches, a fan zone was set up on the Cours de Vincennes, in the 12th arrondissement of the capital. With an initial capacity of 44,000 seats according to the Prefecture of Police, it was, according to testimonies and reports, full during the match. The FSE estimates the attendance in the fan zone at between 45 and 50,000 people. The Real Madrid supporters seen there were very rare since a fan zone in Saint-Denis was reserved for them before the match, for ticket holders, and it is not in the tradition of Spanish supporters to travel without ticket.
“Just in view of these figures, it is totally far-fetched to imagine 40,000 English supporters without tickets at the Stade de France”, explains Pierre Barthélémy, lawyer and member of the Board of Directors of the FSE. Present around the stadium as an observer for the association, Pierre Barthélémy strictly refutes this explanation: “It’s one more excuse. At the start, they explained that the match was postponed because the supporters were late, and they realized that many were already there at 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., then they blamed the RER strike, but there was no no problem on that side. Then there were counterfeit tickets and no tickets, but the figure is grotesque. It’s ridiculous. »
The member of the FSE, who remained for more than an hour in front of Gate Y, the main gate for English supporters, reports only about ten arrests for counterfeit banknotes, of which at least half concerned young people from the district: “They wore no identification with Liverpool, neither jersey, nor color…” An observation which coincides with the images broadcast by many Internet users on social networks.
No influx of supporters to Paris according to the SNCF
All in all, Gérald Darmanin, in a tweet posted this Monday afternoon, reports “29 arrests in the immediate vicinity of the Stade de France, half were British, including 9 for intrusion”. According to our colleagues from BFM, 48 police custody were taken by the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, but none “intervened for facts related to intrusions or false entry tickets to the match”. A very meager balance sheet as reported by Ronan Evain, the director general of the FSE, on Twitter: “This figure [40.000] is totally fanciful. »
Once the match started and the holders of a precious sesame entered, what would have happened to the turned away supporters? According to Pierre Barthélémy, who entered with the last Englishmen, only a few hundred people remained on the square: “300 or 400 young people, but no Liverpool supporters. If they had to return 40,000 people, it would have been seen on the RER platforms, it must represent 20 or 25 trains. The SNCF, responsible for the RER D and RER B line (from Gare du Nord), unveiled Parisian a count of the day on Saturday towards the Stade de France. Thus, “the RER D trains transported 37,000 passengers towards Saint-Denis, which is three and a half times more than during a major event at the Stade de France”, but “the RER B loaded 6 200 or two and a half times less”, or a “normal” flow on average. Asked by 20 minutesthe SNCF, specifies that no particular flow, or more important than usual, was recorded in the other direction after the start of the match.
“Five more people at each point would have been enough”
According to the FSE, this figure is intended to hide an organizational problem and to blame the supporters and the Liverpool club rather than taking responsibility for it: “There were a lot of failures. Five additional people would have been enough at each screening point to direct people and we would not have had these problems. »
Contacted by 20 minutes, the Ministry of the Interior, the Paris Police Prefecture and UEFA did not respond to our requests. However, the prefect of police of Paris Didier Lallement announced to seize justice for a “massive fraud with counterfeit banknotes”
Source: 20minutes
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