Champions League: Witnesses raise new questions about chaos of Paris final

Image source, REUTERS

The chaos at the final in Paris was caused by a catalogue of failures that put fans' lives at risk. There was evidence of software problems on Uefa's tickets and poorly trained stewards.

Government ministers and match officials blame the chaos on fake paper tickets, a transport strike, and local troublemakers who broke into the stadium.

There are deeper questions for them to answer, such as why valid tickets didn't work, the profile of stewards who faced unmanageable crowds, and the engagement of politicians before troublemakers arrived.

Steve Golley and his partner, Selina, were in the crowd at the stadium on May 28.

The hold-up there was caused by problems with the Uefa mobile app, not by fake paper tickets, according to him.

He said the area was filled with people shoulder to shoulder. A lot of people were trying to get their codes on the app. The only one I saw around me was my partner'sQR code. My did not.

French ministers and match officials said last month that 2,500 fake tickets were found at the game, but have since backpedaled. They say that these were still very high by normal standards, and that played a part in the confusion.

The Senate inquiry was told that the problems with digital tickets were caused by fans not changing their phones' settings.

Steve, who has programmed several apps himself, said he followed instructions to the letter, but the code for scanning the ticket didn't show up.

He said there was a problem with the application. The latest update resolved issues a few days before the game. We had issues with the internet when we got to the game.

There was a problem with valid tickets being scanned on both sides of the stadium.

There were a lot of people waiting on the Real Madrid side at 6:30pm. A lot of people were having to do multiple scans of their tickets. I think there was an issue with the app and the turnstiles.

The decision to suspend preliminary ticket checks further back was to relieve crowd pressure on the ramp at the southern entrance to the concourse.

The stewards were supposed to use a card at the initial checkpoint.

"After this check was lifted, a lot of fans arrived at the turnstiles without an activated ticket, and the ticket had to be activated manually by stewards," he said.

He said that the situation around the turnstiles was already chaotic and that the long wait to get tickets made things worse.

Image source, PA Media

We asked Uefa about their technology and contingency plans in the event of a problem on the ground, but they wouldn't comment while their own investigation was still going on.

Match officials and train companies blame each other for mismanaging a rail strike on the day of the match, sending crowds to an access point too small to handle them, and making preliminary checks impossible because of a lack of manpower.

The steward was at the affected entry point.

He told me that what was striking was their age. Young students, not very well trained, just out of high school. The crowd was pushed back in ways that were not helpful.

The first officials fans encountered were these.

There were flaws in the setup. Stewarding requires not only a licence and training, but also the ability to assess risks. The narrative that everything went well on stewarding is not helpful.

There was a lack of trained personnel on the night of the European Championship final, as well as a lack of personnel in general.

We asked the French Football Federation to look into his claims.

The head of security for the FFF told a Senate inquiry last month that it hired almost 1,700 security agents from private security companies. They all had professional certificates and on-site training with equipment.

The National Union for Security Staff is headed by St Péts. The members worked as stewards.

The job of steward is not recognised in France's security code. You need a professional card to be a security agent. Did there enough checks to make sure they all had their cards? I'm not able to judge that.

One man who was a steward that night spoke to us on the record. He wanted us to call him Sam so he wouldn't know who he was. He worked at the stadium on the night of the game.

There were riots before the match. There was a lot of damage and injuries. We quickly realized that we would be overwhelmed.

Sam was protecting a parking area with access to the stadium and witnessed an English supporter being mugged by local troublemakers. He said he prevented sexual assaults on fans by intervening twice.

There are a lot of people who have no certification or security training who work at the stadium.

He said that some of his colleagues were on their first assignment the day of the final.

Image source, PA Media

There are difficulties in recruiting security personnel in France due to the Covid epidemic. Guards rely on extra jobs at sporting events to make ends meet, and when those activities stopped, they switched to other work

The companies have fewer people available to them. More recruitment issues were caused by the fact that France did not originally plan to hold the final of the European soccer tournament.

Senator Patrick Kanner said that they would have been prepared if it had been a normal period. It was an election period, and perhaps the Interior Minister had other worries than investing himself in the organization of this event.

In order to make sure every possibility was imagined, Senator Kanner lost count of the number of meetings he chaired as Sports Minister.

He said that he believed in the presence of ministers. The Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, did not preside over any of the meetings.

The Senate is going to publish a report on the events at the stadium. Senator Kanner said that the process of finding out the truth has been made more difficult because there was no judicial request to preserve the video footage.

He said that no one asked for the images. I am not saying there is a conspiracy. I don't believe in conspiracy theories. It's odd that images from 220 cameras were deleted when they could have shown the truth.

Even as the answers begin to take shape, there are still questions that remain unanswered.

Fourteen months away from the Rugby World Cup and 24 months away from the Olympics, some in this country are concerned.