LFC CHRISTMAS GIFTS

WORLDWIDE DELIVERY

France show no lessons learned from Champions League final chaos

Sixteen months after the Champions League final chaos in Paris and just days following the proclamation that France had learned its lessons, they proved they had, in fact, not.

The fallout from the 2022 Champions League final continues, an event that was deemed “remarkable that no one lost their life,” with safety failures almost leading to a “mass fatality catastrophe.”

On that night in Paris, serious congestion problems outside the Stade de France saw thousands of fans penned in against perimeter fences, with heavy-handed police treating fans with contempt.

There were rightly concerns over France’s ability to safely hold the Rugby World Cup this summer and, subsequently, the Olympics next year.

And only days ago Sports Minister Amelie Oudea Castera insisted they had “done a tremendous amount of work to learn the lessons” from Liverpool’s final.

This is the same minister who blamed ‘ticketless’ Liverpool fans and the ‘specific risk’ they posed for the 2022 events.

“It will be an outstanding moment of sport. This Rugby World Cup is set to be exceptional as France organises it alone for the first time,” Castera declared.

Well, on only the second day of the competition as England met Argentina in the group stages in Marseille, hundreds of supporters missed kick-off, and there were again scenes of crowd crushing.

The incompetence continues to put spectators straight into danger and evidently, the lessons from 2022 have not be learned as videos and images on social media proved.

Supporters were again funnelled into a small area to enter the stadium and their organisation in getting thousands of people into the ground were shambolic.

The incompetence continues to put lives at risk, and it is frightening that France continue to be awarded major international events.