French minister apologises to Liverpool for crowd chaos slur at Champions League final

France’s Justice Minister has apologised to Liverpool fans three years after wrongly blaming them for the Champions League final chaos in Paris.

Gérald Darmanin, who was France’s Interior Minister at the time of the 2022 final at Stade de France, now accepts he made mistakes in pointing the finger.

During security failures which delayed kick off against Real Madrid, police used tear gas on Liverpool supporters as they tried to enter the stadium. Some fans were also ambushed and mugged by gangs of French youths.

”Yes, it was a failure,” Darmanin now says of his claim at the time that up to 40,000 supporters without tickets or with forged tickets contributed to the chaos. Only 2,471 forged tickets were subsequently identified.

“Because I hadn’t checked what was happening properly, which was my mistake, and because I gave in to preconceived ideas,” Darmanin said in an interview with the “Legend” show on YouTube. “The culprit was easy [to designate], and I apologise to Liverpool fans. Of course they were right to [feel upset].”

The 2022 final was delayed by more than 30 minutes after police indiscriminately fired tear gas and pepper spray at thousands outside the stadium.

Darmanin said the night was “the biggest failure” of his career. “What I did not appreciate that evening was that the real problem was not coming from English supporters, but from delinquents who were robbing fans,” he added.

“Our security arrangements were not designed for that eventuality. We had riot police… with big boots and shields – not great for running. What you need against that kind of delinquency is officers in running shoes. We got our arrangements wrong. We were expecting a war of [football] hooligans, and what we got instead was muggers.”

Claims of fake tickets were debunked in an independent report commissioned by Uefa. In another section of the interview, Darmanin said that there was “no longer any safe place” in France. “What a lot of French people can see is that [violence] has become general, it has metastasised,” he said. “It’s no longer only in the places where you once looked for potential problems. Nowadays you can see that the tiniest country village has experience of cocaine or cannabis.”