Liverpool fans were unfairly blamed for the Champions League final chaos.
A French Senate report has found that supporters of Jurgen Klopp’s side were scapegoated in order to ‘divert attention’ from the operational failings in Paris.
Thousands of ticket holding fans were pepper sprayed by local police after being held in hours-long queues before the game in the Stade de France.
Kick-off in the final, which the Reds lost to Real Madrid, was delayed by more than an hour as a direct consequence of the chaos outside the turnstiles.
France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin initially claimed that ticketless fans had caused the build-up of numbers at the perimeter of the Stade de France.
But the Senate heard testimonies from fans caught up in the traumatic scenes as well as government officials and UEFA’s events director Martin Kallen.
In a provisional report published on Wednesday, it slammed the ticketing system of European football’s governing body for the game as ‘unsuitable’.
The local police have also been condemned for approaching the situation with a ‘dated vision’ of British football fans by treating crowds akin to hooligans.
The report states: “It is unfair to have wanted to make supporters of the Liverpool team bear the responsibility for the disturbances that occurred, as the minister of the interior did to divert attention from the inability of the state to adequately manage the crowds present and to curb the action of several hundred violent and co-ordinated offenders.”