Michael
French Interior Minister Apologises To Victims Of ‘Bad Management’ at the Liverpool Real Madrid UCL Final
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin has apologised to “everyone who suffered from bad management” at the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris.
However, the 39-year-old, who had previously made outlandish claims about the number of counterfeit tickets in circulation at the Stade de France, stopped short of saying sorry to the Liverpool fans he blamed for the problems on the night of the club’s defeat to Real Madrid.
“Should the Stade de France have been better managed? The answer is yes,” he told French radio station RTL after supporters were locked out and then tear-gassed after serious congestion problems developed.
“Am I partly responsible? The answer is yes. Of course, I readily apologise towards everyone who suffered from this bad management of the event.”
After the match supporters complained of being robbed by local gangs with police, who had earlier employed heavy-handed methods in an attempt to deal with the growing crowd issue, offering no protection.
Darmanin said they had learned from that and France’s two recent Nations League matches and the Top 14 rugby final at the stadium all passed off without major incident.
“It profoundly changed the organisation of the police headquarters,” he added.
“I changed the organisation to fight against delinquency because, if there was something that went wrong at the Stade de France, it was the fight against delinquency.”
