PARIS
\nFrench Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Tuesday made a partial apology for chaos at last month\u2019s Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool in Paris, while insisting fake tickets and \u201cdelinquency\u201d were mostly to blame.
\n\u201cShould things have been managed better at the Stade de France stadium? The answer is yes. Am I partly responsible? The answer is yes,\u201d Darmanin told RTL radio.
\n\u201cOf course, I readily apologise towards everyone who suffered from this bad management of the event,\u201d he added.
\nAfter scenes of fans crowded into tight spaces and being tear-gassed by police caused outrage around Europe, Darmanin poured fuel on the fire by blaming supporters with fake tickets for the disruption.
\nUEFA events director Martin Kallen last week told French senators investigating the fiasco that the football body\u2019s count of fake tickets was far short of the tens of thousands claimed by French authorities
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t believe it\u2019s the number mentioned in France,\u201d he said, adding that 2,600 fake tickets were identified at turnstiles, compared with the number of 30,000 to 40,000 people with fake tickets and without tickets suggested by Darmanin.
\n\u201cIt was a question of fake tickets that created the difficulties we all know about\u201d of large crowds of fans packed into underpasses or outside locked gates, Darmanin insisted Tuesday.
\nHe added that \u201cif there was something that went wrong at the Stade de France, it was the fight against delinquency\u201d, saying he had already ordered a reorganisation of policing around the venue and that three major matches since had passed without incident.
\nWhile some supporters did report being victims of crime by gangs of youths before and after the match, there were also many complaints about police treatment of fans.
\nDisabled Liverpool fans last week told the Senate how officers sprayed tear gas at people in wheelchairs.
\nThe English supporters have reacted with particular fury to Darmanin\u2019s defence of the French police\u2019s actions.
\nCCTV footage from around the stadium has also been deleted despite the Senate probe.
\nA government report published earlier this month said a \u201cchain of failures\u201d by French authorities has inflicted \u201csevere damage\u201d on the image of the country as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Tuesday made a partial apology for chaos at last month\u2019s Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool in Paris, while insisting fake tickets and \u201cdelinquency\u201d were mostly to blame. \u201cShould things have been managed better at the Stade de France stadium? The answer is yes. Am I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-268975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n