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Jürgen Klopp
Photo: IMAGO/Alexey Filippov / IMAGO/SNA
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp
partly to blame for the chaotic scenes on the sidelines of the Champions League final in Paris.
"I remind you that a few days ago - and this is public - the Liverpool manager called on fans to come to France without a ticket," Darmanin said.
Numerous Liverpool fans were denied entry to the Stade de France on Saturday evening before the start of the final between Real Madrid and Liverpool FC.
According to the authorities, around 2,700 of them did not come to the stadium despite a regular ticket.
Pictures showed men climbing the fences to the stadium, police spraying tear gas at Liverpool fans and confrontations at the gates.
The police in Paris registered more than 100 arrests and 230 injuries around the final.
The kick-off was delayed by more than half an hour.
(Read more here).
Many of the backgrounds are still unclear, and there are mutual recriminations.
Darmanin, at an emergency meeting convened by new Sport Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera, insisted that large-scale ticket fraud and the behavior of Liverpool fans were to blame for the fiasco.
The main reason for the chaos and the delay in the match was a "massive, large-scale and organized fraud with counterfeit tickets," said Minister.
The final was considered a rehearsal for the Olympics
He spoke of 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans who had gathered in front of the Stade des France with fake or no tickets.
Part of the problem was that Liverpool insisted on paper tickets instead of electronic tickets.
The Paris police prefect Didier Lallement turned on the judiciary because of the fraud.
France's officials are under pressure: the Rugby World Cup will be held in Paris next year and the Olympic Games in two years' time.
The Champions League final was also used as a test run for the security concepts that applied.
Darmanin subsequently accused the Liverpool fans of being less organized than the Madrid supporters.
"These problems only exist in football at certain English clubs," he said.
He claimed there were "the same issues" at the 2019 Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham in Madrid, noting that Klopp encouraged Liverpool fans to travel to the French capital for Sunday's game.
Liverpool FC had officially advised fans not to travel to Paris without a ticket, but Klopp had said in early May that Paris was "big enough" to have a good time there even without a ticket.
He had complained that the clubs could not have sold enough tickets.
"Behave yourselves, but be in the best possible mood," he is quoted as saying in the "Daily Mail," among other things.
Klopp also encouraged fans to travel to Switzerland without tickets at the Europa League final between Liverpool and Sevilla in Basel in 2016, later he revised his statement.
Uefa had security concerns.
Uefa had set up fan zones for Liverpool fans without a ticket
In Paris, the European Football Union Uefa had set up fan zones with free entry.
The website expressly states: "The game will also be shown on a big screen for Liverpool fans without tickets at the fan meeting point."
In Great Britain there had been sharp criticism of the actions of the security forces.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman had called for a full investigation.
Sharp criticism from Great Britain, Uefa wants to submit a report
Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson, who was at the Stade de France herself, told the BBC on Monday that the police had been "really brutal".
In addition, the organization of the football game was "chaotic".
Uefa wants to have the processes reviewed by independent experts.
As the association announced on Monday evening, a report had been commissioned from a team led by former Portuguese sports minister Tiago Brandão Rodrigues.
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