>Champions League Final: Harrowing accounts of post-match violence spark debate
>A week has gone by but the stadium "fiasco" remains a hot issue in France, with new and harrowing accounts about the breakdown in law and order when the match had come to an end.
>Among Liverpool fans whose translated testimony has been circulating widely on social media is UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett, who said he had "never been so scared in my life … as when I came out of that ground on Saturday night. At least when you are in a cage it is one against one," the mixed martial artist said.
>"There were groups of 30 men, running around in big packs. Some of them had weapons: machetes, knives, bars and bats. People were being pinned to the floor and having their watches taken. I saw people having their handbags taken off them, when [the thieves] would pull the bag from them and then slice the [strap] with a knife."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61685718
Why is it that whenever absolutely anything goes wrong at a sporting event it's pinned on English fans? It looks like the Olympics in Paris will be a laugh.
The problems before the match were a fairly straightforward last-minute logistical cockup. A partial strike on the RER meant that most of the Liverpool fans came to the stadium via Ligne D rather than Ligne B. The plan was to redirect most of these fans to the main approach on the Avenue du Stade de France, but this plan wasn't carried out by the municipal police. The overwhelming number of fans at the secondary approach on Avenue du Président Wilson created several severe bottlenecks well before the fans actually reached the stadium gates.
By the time the situation became clear, there was no viable plan to redirect the crowd to alternative gates and it was primarily a case of preventing a dangerous stampede or crush. If we're being charitable, the problems broadly stem from the last-minute change of venue, UEFA's failure to fully appraise the suitability of the Stade de France and the bureaucratic complexities of France's multi-layered policing system.
As regards the trouble after the match, the Stade de France is in Saint-Denis, which is bandit country. There's nowhere in Britain that even begins to compare with the lawlessness and mayhem of the banlieues défavorisées. The police don't enforce the law there, they just try to stop the shit from spilling out. Liverpool Football Club failed to communicate this to their fans, but I'm not sure they would have fully appreciated the gravity of the situation.
There's minimal information about the perpetrator so far, but even if he is a terrorist, I would suggest that terrorists are nutters too. And the news is going to great lengths to stress that this was a white nutter.
But it really is always Liverpool, isn't it? Nobody can blame them for this. It's a terrible thing. But horror and tragedy does seem to follow them around.
>>10372 Completely pulled this out of my arse, but it looks like someone managed to turn their car onto the parade route and then completely and utterly lost their head when members of the public confronted them until it escalated to this.
It would be a deeply unsatisfying explanation for a lot of people, but it has happened several times recently in other countries - someone takes a wrong turn or tries to be a bit cheeky and nip through a closure, they end up surrounded by an irate crowd and just totally panic.
>>10374 It happened in Spain about a week ago when some woman in a car found herself surrounded by Espanyol fans after their match against Barcelona. She panicked and drove through them to get away. So it could be another of those.
In the Liverpool one, there’s the video of him driving into the crowd, which looks unequivocally terrible. Then there’s another video from a few minutes earlier where some loutish fans are attacking his car (that’s how his rear windscreen got smashed) and that changed my perception of the story completely. I have, however, heard that there is an even earlier video, which shows that they’re attacking his car because he already tried to drive into the crowd. But I haven’t seen that one, and I think I would have done if it existed. So this is probably why the police are asking people not to speculate.
A couple of people are seriously injured, but so far apparently nobody has died, which is excellent news if this remains the case.
