Liverpool ask fans for their accounts of chaos that marred Champions League final

Liverpool have urged supporters caught up in the chaos before Saturday’s Champions League final to complete a feedback form as the club demand a formal investigation into the dangerous and frightening scenes in Paris.

The club wishes to collate as many eyewitness accounts as possible to support any inquest after fans were locked out of the Stade de France, almost crushed, attacked by gangs of thieves and teargassed by police.

Ticket holders from the final will be sent the form via email or can complete it on Liverpool’s club website.

The club said: ‘Liverpool FC is asking supporters who attended the Champions League final in Paris to complete a feedback form in order to support any investigation into the operational management of the event. 

‘The club officially requested a formal and transparent investigation into the issues supporters faced in and around Stade de France, before and after kick-off.’

It came as Liverpool reacted with fury to the French government’s attempts to deflect blame for the shambolic scenes that overshadowed Saturday’s final against Real Madrid.

Liverpool have reacted with fury after the French government’s latest attempt to blame their supporters for the chaos that erupted at Saturday’s Champions League final (pictured above)

Fans, including young women and children, were sprayed with tear gas by French police (right)

Liverpool chairman Tom Werner (second right) has demanded an apology from France’s sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera and CEO Billy Hogan (left) said the club was ‘reviewing legal avenues available to us on behalf of affected supporters’ after the terrible scenes in Paris

UEFA have announced they will conduct an independent inquiry but Liverpool’s patience with the French authorities snapped as they forcefully demanded retractions.

Liverpool chairman Tom Werner has written to Amelie Oudea-Castera, France’s sports minister, demanding an apology for her claim that 30,000 to 40,000 people ‘without tickets or with fake tickets’ had been at the Stade de France.

And Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan gave an impassioned interview about an occasion that had become the ‘worst experience in many people’s lives’.

Hogan added on the club’s website: ‘We are also reviewing legal avenues available to us on behalf of affected supporters.’

The angry fall-out continued on Monday when one French politician blamed Jurgen Klopp for the chaos after the Liverpool manager encouraged fans to travel to Paris regardless of whether they had a ticket.

Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, has made a string of wild claims since Saturday designed to frame Liverpool fans as being badly behaved and solely responsible for a situation that has now become an international political incident.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said he was ‘deeply upset and concerned’ by footage of women and children, among others, being sprayed with tear gas and was ‘hugely disappointed’ about how they had been treated by the French police.

Hogan was so incensed about Darmanin’s provocative comments that he issued a second statement within 24 hours.

On Sunday, he had said the chaos was ‘unacceptable’ and ‘put people at risk’ but he went further last night and could not hide his dismay at the ordeal to which thousands of travelling fans had been subjected.

‘At this stage it’s just not responsible (for the French authorities) to be making comments before we’ve gathered all the information,’ said Hogan.

Numerous fans were trapped outside the Stade de France stadium despite having valid tickets

The French police have been widely accused of being heavy-handed with largely peaceful fans

‘People have obviously had their experience on the ground at the stadium, but until the relevant stakeholders have had the opportunity to go through a proper investigation, I don’t think it’s appropriate to be making any comments on any numbers.

‘Forty-thousand people was the number I heard that were at the stadium without tickets. Somebody said that today — how can that be quantified at this stage, before we’ve had an independent and transparent investigation?

‘There’s also been quotes about people with fake tickets but, again, how do we know all the facts until we’ve had an investigation? One fact we do know is the Champions League final should be one of the finest spectacles in football and it resulted in one of the worst experiences of many supporters’ lives.

‘I would say that all politicians and agencies involved in this event need to wait until a full and independent investigation is concluded before attempting to shift blame.

‘The seriousness of these events requires we do that, a professional review, so that all the lessons can be learned and all football fans — Liverpool or otherwise — never have to experience anything like this again.’

There were crowds and queues outside the ground, with a sizeable bottleneck of supporters

There was a delay before the match kicked off to allow fans outside the stadium to go inside

The fuse was lit on Monday morning when Darmanin said in a press conference that bogus tickets were to blame for the mayhem.

‘There was massive fraud at an industrial level and organisation of fake tickets, 70 per cent of tickets were fake tickets coming into the Stade de France,’ he said. ‘More than 2,600 were confirmed by UEFA as non-validated tickets even though they had gone through the first filtering.

‘The massive presence of the fake tickets was the issue which meant there were delays — three times the match was delayed. We had a long meeting where we had exactly the same interpretation about what happened.

‘I would like to express our regret with regard to the organisation of the final because some people were not able to see the whole match. I deplore the errors which took place before.’

Oudea-Castera added: ‘The major point is to try to understand precisely what happened during this massive fraud. There are witnesses and the figures corroborate this, 30,000-40,000 people without tickets or with fake tickets, and we saw some fake tickets.

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera (above) said fans with valid tickets who did not gain entry to watch the match will be refunded by UEFA

Labour’s Ian Byrne (not in shot) said it was ‘one of the most horrendous experiences of my life’

‘We can see they are professional and that meant some controls didn’t notice (the forgeries). We want a very detailed inquiry with UEFA. We are waiting for the rapid setting-up of this inquiry.’

Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, attended the match in Paris and said he had never witnessed such scenes since the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

He has written to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss with seven demands, including a formal probe and apologies, aimed at UEFA and the French authorities. In his letter, he said: ‘The French authorities and UEFA are quite simply covering their backs with this narrative.

‘As a Liverpool fan, I was in Paris for the match and I can honestly say that the situation outside the ground was one of the most horrendous experiences of my life.

‘And as a Hillsborough survivor, I do not make this comment lightly.’

It came as Real Madrid fans also recounted horror stories of their experience at the Stade de France, smashing the myth that only Liverpool fans were responsible.

Real Madrid supporters have recounted the same horror stories from the Stade de France as their Liverpool counterparts, suggesting only the patience of fans prevented multiple deaths

They have spoken of the same bottleneck security checkpoints with local thugs creating crushes so they could pickpocket fans, and police responding with arbitrary pepper-spraying

They have spoken of the same bottleneck security checkpoints at the outer security ring of the stadium with local thugs creating crushes so they could pickpocket fans, and police responding with arbitrary pepper-spraying.

There have also been claims there were no police at the turnstiles where thieves, who had jumped gates on the outer ring, were free to snatch tickets and enter the stadium.

Speaking to Spain’s Radio Cope, Gabriel Saez, the president of fitness company GO fit who was at the game with his wife and five children, said: ‘We are lucky to be talking about Madrid’s victory and not a tragedy. There were no signs to say where the entrances were.

‘We followed other supporters to the only place you could advance to the stadium. It was a bottleneck and imagine the scene: I have children of eight, 12, 15, 20 and 24 years. In this flood of people I said to my wife, ‘Lets get out of here’, because any sort of trouble in that situation and there would have been deaths.

UEFA will investigate the awful scenes ahead of the Champions League final on Saturday night

‘But we couldn’t move so we encircled our youngest. There were two police vans making the bottleneck, limiting the space where only five at a time were allowed to pass.

‘They frisked you and checked you had a ticket and then let you pass. There were moments when they were firing pepper spray towards people.

‘The English fans have a bad reputation, but I never saw any problems. They were showing a lot of patience. There are a lot of gates to access this stadium.

‘I was there to see a France-Ireland rugby match and there was no problem, but they only opened two or three gates with these bottlenecks.’