French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera has claimed that the crowd trouble ahead of the Champions League final was sparked by the presence of ‘thousands’ of Liverpool fans who turned up without legitimate tickets. 

Kick-off was delayed because of significant clashes between supporters and police outside the Stade de France, with Liverpool demanding an independent investigation into the incident after witnesses accused the local authorities of unnecessarily escalating the situation.  UEFA put the blame on the presence of Liverpool fans who turned up with fake tickets or without anything at all, and Oudea-Castera has echoed that sentiment. 

“What happened, first of all, was this mass gathering of the British supporters of Liverpool, without tickets, or with fake tickets,” she told French radio RTL. “Between 30,000 and 40,000 people, it is considerable. 

“Because the tickets were fake, the turnstiles were blocked and that created a concentration outside the stadium. When you have this mass of people, there are attempts at forcing entry and young people from the neighbourhood tried to rush in.” 

Oudea-Castera went on to confirm that a meeting will be held on Monday to determine what happened and questioned why both Liverpool and UEFA chose to allow paper tickets for the match. 

“[UEFA] accepted that there would be no exclusive use of the mobile application, which would have allowed there to be tamper-proof tickets,” she explained. 

“Liverpool asked that there be no use of this mobile application. UEFA accepted and therefore created a circuit of paper tickets, which led to overflows. We absolutely need to know what happened. 

“This Monday, we are bringing together all the parties to establish responsibilities. We will do an in-depth analysis. We will all be very active.”