A majority of French people believe that their country cannot safely organise the 2024 Olympic Games and 2023 Rugby World Cup in Paris, in large part because of their government’s failures to manage last season’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
That is according to data from a survey commissioned by French daily newspaper Le Figaro, which found that 58 per cent of people in France doubt their government’s “ability to ensure the security” of two of the biggest sporting events of the decade.
The survey found that many concerns date back to 28 May this year, when the French government was humiliated on an international scale after the Champions League final had to be delayed when a series of failures by the authorities led to near disaster.
Football fans including women, children and disabled people were left with serious physical injuries and mental trauma in chaotic scenes before, during and after European football’s showpiece event at the Stade de France just outside of Paris. Some were beaten with riot shields and tear gassed by police, locked in dangerous crushes outside the stadium and mugged by armed gangs of local thieves.
Kick-off was delayed by 36 minutes and Uefa originally made an announcement on the big screen inside the stadium blaming fans for the problems due to their “late arrival” for the match. Once supporters had proven the accusation wrong by posting time-stamped audio-visual evidence online in the aftermath, Uefa issued a short apology to fans of both clubs on its website.
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When the senate revealed the findings of its investigation, the inquiry’s co-chairman Laurent Lafon said: “Liverpool supporters wanting to support their team are not responsible for what happened. It is unfair to have sought to blame Liverpool supporters for the disturbances as the interior minister [Darmanin] has done, in order to deflect attention from the state’s inability to adequately manage the crowd.”
The admittance of administrative errors – made by the government, police, the French Football Federation, transport authorities, and municipality of St Denis where the Stade de France is located – combined with the government’s lack of response now form the basis of concerns that the security of upcoming events at the same stadium is inherently uncertain.
The Rugby World Cup is due to take place in France across September and October next year, with the final set to be held at the Stade de France, while the Olympic Games will be held in Paris between July and August 2024, with track-and-field events scheduled for the same arena.
The mismanagement of the Champions League final and poor handling of the fallout partly led to severe consequences for French President Emmanuel Macron, who lost his majority in legislative elections which took place in June. Now Darmanin, still in his role despite the damning findings the senate report made about his mistruths, has vowed that the solution is to take a “zero delinquency” attitude towards events held at the Stade de France and is planning to hire up to 25,000 students to act as security agents for the Olympics.
Uefa, meanwhile, has formed an unprecedented independent panel of experts to investigate the fiasco and report its findings. The group – which is led by Portuguese MP Dr Tiago Rodrigues and includes lawyer Pete Weatherby, who represented 22 of the Hillsborough families at inquests, Ronan Evain of Football Supporters Europe, and Amanda Jacks, who is a case worker for the Football Supporters’ Federation in the United Kingdom – has already travelled to Liverpool and Madrid to meet with officials and fans from both clubs.
The panel is set to publish the findings of its investigation at the end of November. An independent report conducted by academics at Queens University Belfast based on testimony from 485 attendees of the Champions League final was released earlier this month and found that French police had conducted “criminal assault” against sports fans.
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