What was supposed to be a football game turned into chaos. On Saturday May 28, the kick-off of the Champions League final, one of the main sporting events on the planet, had to be delayed by 36 minutes due to incidents near the Stade de France, where was organized the match between Real Madrid and Liverpool. Philippe Auclair, specialist in English football based in London since 1986 and author in particular of Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King and Thierry Henry: Lonely at the Top, believes that the French police, as well as the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who implicated Liverpool supporters, misunderstand the reality of British football fans.
In Great Britain, the declarations of the French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who pointed the finger at the British supporters, were badly perceived. Why did his words shock?
To claim as Gérald Darmanin did at his disastrous press conference that Liverpool fans are hooligans is foolish, and wrong. It is to ignore the history of the club and to forget the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 where 97 fans were trampled to death. English football has changed enormously as a result.
Precisely, the French police should be inspired by the changes made in the maintenance of British order following this tragedy. There is a hooligan file across the Channel, identification of any possible troublemaker before each match and a specialized and specifically trained police force who are there to supervise and reassure fans, rather than worry them. It is obvious that the French police were nervous on Saturday evening and that they have easy batons, which did not help matters.
Will this affair leave traces on both sides of the Channel?
The controversy is not about to die down and with the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games set to take place in France in 2023 and 2024, media around the world will begin to ask questions about the capacity of this country to supervise these sporting events. For the image of France, these events and the reaction of the French authorities are catastrophic. Instead of blaming Liverpool supporters, Gérald Darmanin should have wondered what could have been done differently. It would have sent a reassuring and responsible message to the whole world.
Who are actually responsible for the Saturday night fiasco at the Stade de France?
It seems obvious that the whole system put in place has imploded. We know that there were not enough stewards and that in some places, controls (in other words pre-screening, filtering and entry into the stadium) were non-existent. The idea put forward by UEFA [NDLR : l’instance européenne du football] that Liverpool supporters arrived late is false. The Stade de France is used to receiving 80,000 people, it was the joint organization of UEFA and the French authorities that failed. The chaos did not claim any victims but the tragedy was narrowly avoided. We witnessed what the English call “a perfect storm”, namely enormous pressure and a lame organization.
What are UEFA’s faults, in your opinion?
On the UEFA side, poor security arrangements inside and outside stadiums are endemic, not to mention fraud and ticketing problems. The over-marketing of Premier League matches and the restricted allocation of tickets to fans is creating hyperinflation and the creation of a secondary market where prices soar. Liverpool fans were only allowed 20,000 seats. And when we know that 20% of these tickets cost 600 euros per person, we understand their frustration. I remember seeing a Premier League VIP ticket advertised at 15,000 euros on this secondary market. There is also a fake ticket industry, this is not new and UEFA must solve this problem.
And the responsibility of the French authorities?
On the French police side, and we should be talking here about the responsibility of the prefect of police, there is a deep misunderstanding of the world of football today. They operate on forty-year-old software. The fans of the big English clubs are not the fans of the national team who can pick a fight. They should not be treated as potential criminals, they are fans who have paid several hundred euros for their ticket and who often come as a family to have a good time, not to create trouble and break everything. The French police cannot treat any sporting event as a manifestation of yellow vests, and consider the football fan as a potential offender.