Match delayed, crowds dangerously compressed, tear gas… the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid on Saturday May 28 turned into chaos for supporters and a nightmare for the French government and the Union of European Football Associations. football (UEFA), organizer of the event. For the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the main reason for this fiasco is the existence of an “industrial fraud of counterfeit banknotes”. What really happened?
Our investigation reveals that if the presence of fans without tickets or with a fake ticket was very real on May 28, and moreover foreseen by the French authorities, this is not what caused the incidents which occurred around the Stadium. of France, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Thanks to hundreds of photos and videos of the events published on social networks, the video investigation unit of Le Monde was able to reconstruct the sequence of events and the routes taken by the thousands of supporters that evening. Documents as close as possible to the events, which reveal an erratic reception system and the inadequacy of the maintenance of order around the stadium.
