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Liverpool lost the Champions League final in Paris.
Before, but above all after the match, Liverpool fans have been really in danger for life. Organized gangs, which have robbed fans arriving in the city, tear gas, pepper spray and even guns aimed at them.
Some fans were attacked by the local gang for the purpose of robbery, others had injuries to the face and various parts of the body, seeking medical help and after all this, obviously the loss on the field was forgotten.
“It was the worst experience I have ever seen in a football match. “I go to the stadium when I was 6 years old, but today it was different, something I had never seen,” Paul Machin told Goal from The Redmen TV channel.
He later reveals that Parisian police severely attacked fans on the way to the Saint-Denis Porte de Paris train station, as he states that he saw guns pointed in the face of “the red” fans, while many of them fled to terrorized.
“It was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. I was at the center of everything, but I have no words to describe what happened. Can you imagine being away from a concert or major event, and having a pistol pointed at you? It’s madness “, Machin continues his story.
“This is my seventh European final, following Liverpool and it will be the last. “I do not want to see such things again,” said another English fan.
The problems started as soon as the fans landed in Saint-Deniz Porte de Paris, from where they would leave for the stadium. A short route was expected, but encountered extraordinary queues, minimal ticket checks and little or no signage.
“It was a nightmare. There were no checks until you went to the bottom of the ramp to take you to the stadium. “Even there were only 6 flight attendants who took care of thousands of fans, not the police”, another fan confesses.
When most of the fans, who had walked through a narrow, dark line and fallen prey to local thieves, finally arrived, they found many closed gates and police and stewards who did not hear their concerns at all.
“I was in the Y section,” said one fan who arrived at the Paris de Porte station at 18:30 local time, two and a half hours before departure. “There were as many people as the eye could see. Those inside were locked at the gate, no one was moving and no one on the other side of the gate was communicating. “They were treated like cattle.”
With dozens of fans, including children, disabled fans and elderly spectators trapped in the outside rows, UEFA decided to postpone the start of the match. The news arrived 14 minutes before the scheduled start time, but was not communicated to those still waiting outside, a move that would at least have eased some of the tension that had been created in the previous two hours or so.
Inside the stadium a message on the giant screens announced the news. The postponement was said to be due to the “delay in the arrival of the fans” which caused whistles from those who had already entered the stadium. A real lie, an attempt by UEFA to lay the blame. As more and more stories went off the field, it became clear that the UEFA story was not true and should not be accepted.
Within minutes, videos circulating on social media showed Liverpool fans climbing over a wall, ostensibly to enter the stadium illegally. Embarrassingly, several accounts with numerous followers shared the videos, repeating again the lie that Liverpool fans were bad.
The truth is that those fans were not looking to enter the stadium, but were trying to be safe as they were being crushed by the crowd on the ramps leading to the stadium. On the other side of that wall was not the Stade de France itself, but more barriers, more gates and more police.
In the atrium inside the field, a reporter, who had traveled as a fan, approached what he described as “a very worried-looking UEFA official” asking for an explanation. “He told me that the reason they said it on the big screen was to prevent panic inside the stadium,” he told GOAL.
Meanwhile, people trapped outside would be subjected to a horrific and unprovoked attack by police: “It was like being in a war movie,” says a fan, a veteran over 30 and a good friend of the correspondent. . “Suddenly, out of nowhere, people start falling to the ground, touching their faces. My eyes started burning and dripping, and then you understand. What the hell, they were using tear gas. There were kids, family and old fans. They had tickets and were trying to get in to see their team play a final, and police used tear gas.
By this time a number of journalists had come out of the press box to capture the scenes. ESPN reporter Mark Ogden filmed a police officer spraying hot peppers on a fan as Carrie Brown of BeIn Sports spoke to those who had entered after the gates were opened late.
Steve Douglas, an Associated Press reporter, was accompanied by a police officer who took him to a security checkpoint and threatened to lift his accreditation if he did not delete all the video footage he had taken.
Robbie Fowler, the Liverpool legend, spent most of the first half out. His son, Jacob, and brother Scott were also seen involved in the chaos in front of the stadium.
Also in the fray were Mike Gordon, one of the owners of Liverpool and Marvin Matip, the brother of Reds defender Joel. Andy Robertson revealed that one of his friends had been denied entry, accused of presenting a fake ticket.
“Fortunately he came in because one of the club’s representatives solved the problem,” Robertson told reporters afterwards. “They said it was a forgery anyway and I assure you it was not. They invented it all, panicked. “UEFA should have been better organized.”
Others, like Gary Lineker and Kelly Cates, have shared their experiences on social media: their stories are very different from those shared by UEFA, the police and, shamefully, a number of French politicians.
The match eventually started at 21:36 local time and UEFA confirmed the pre-match show involving Camilla Cabello. There was noise when the Champions League anthem was played and the club issued a statement during the match condemning the “unacceptable” treatment of the fans and said that they were “officially calling for an investigation into the causes.”
On the field, Vinicius Junior’s goal in the second half solved things, but by then UEFA had begun to change its tone. As reported, the start of the match was postponed because “thousands of fans who had bought fake tickets” had “blocked the rolls at the entrance to the stands, causing delays.
“As they say, those who lie, are those who change history?” A disgusted fan told GOAL: “In the beginning it was the late arrivals, then the fake tickets. “I’m just surprised that they did not use drunkenness as an excuse to sell more tickets than capacity.”
The position of the authorities was clarified as the match went into extra time. Hundreds of police officers dressed in black lined up threateningly in front of Liverpool fans. On the other hand, the cheering Real Madrid fans had only a handful of stewards.
Inside the stadium there were few or no problems, as part of the Liverpool fans emptied quickly after the last whistle. But outside, for some the nightmare was about to start again.
“There were gangs roaming outside, trying to rob and attack Liverpool fans,” said an eyewitness. “We saw a boy who stole his watch, then my brother, who was a little behind me, started shouting that someone had taken his phone and money. Some of them managed to catch the thief, but then 4-5 others came out of nowhere and came to his aid. “My brother had a wound on his face, his friend suffered a head injury and another boy was shot.”
“They went to the police station and basically told them they were not interested. ‘Go to the hospital’ was the essence of it all. “When they arrived at the hospital, there was a boy who was hit by a subway train while running to save someone with a knife and was injured after being beaten and hit with a bottle.”
Another fan was attacked by a group of young people. His head was bleeding and he was afraid that he had broken his leg, while he had his little boy with him.
Others tell similar stories. One reporter, Caoimhe O’Neill of The Athletic, describes her horror when a gang surrounded her and a group of supporters outside.
“I never thought I would be happy to leave such a beautiful city,” she wrote on Twitter on Sunday morning.
Many feel the same way. GOAL spoke to several fans waiting for Eurostar at the Gare du Nord station on Sunday. Everyone had stories to tell, everyone felt disappointed by the authorities. No one is in a hurry to return to Paris or the Stade de France soon.
“I have seen problems in matches abroad. Athens 2007 was bad, but it was worse. “It was a complete failure of the organizers and the authorities, and it could have been much worse than it was.”
“I’m honest, what happened discouraged me,” said Reds fan Carl Clemente, who was involved in a tear gas incident outside the stadium with his nine-year-old son. “Of course I will continue to cheer for Liverpool, but I will definitely think twice before going to the stadium. It was like a war zone, groups of people were accusing the police and the latter responded with pepper spray. The boy and I were waiting for a taxi and they threw pepper spray at us. I bumped into something and my son was crying. “We were not full of breath and our eyes were burning terribly.”
“He is nine years old. It was his first major European final. Do you think he will want to come back? “I’m not sure if I will come either.”
That, indeed, is the saddest part. This story is not about fan harassment or hooliganism. This is not about fake tickets or late arrivals, alcohol or bad behavior.
It all has to do with the safety and security of those who went on a dream trip to see their team – paying a fortune for the privilege, remember – and found themselves in the middle of a nightmare.
As Kenny Dalglish later wrote: “No one should be afraid to go to a football match.” There were a lot of Liverpool fans on Saturday night. Some could not even enter and others may not return. And it is UEFA and the French authorities that must answer the question why. SUPER SPORT
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