A French official blamed ticket fraud “on an industrial scale” for Saturday’s chaotic scene at the Champions League final, and another said the situation was made worse by local youths who tried to force their way into Stade de France. The start of the championship game between Liverpool and Real Madrid was delayed by more than 30 minutes.
French government officials met on Monday to discuss crowd control, and the situation was becoming a political issue ahead of parliamentary elections next month.
France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a news conference after the meeting (via Reuters) that Liverpool provided paper rather than electronic tickets for many of its fans, leading to two-thirds of the tickets shown by roughly 62,000 Liverpool fans being determined to be fake and creating the possibility of “massive fraud on an industrial scale.