French authorities claimed an "industrial scale" amount of fake tickets distributed among Liverpool fans was the initial cause of ugly scenes before the Champions League final where tear gas was used on queuing families with children.

It follows a barrage of criticism from press and politicians in the UK over French police handling of the showpiece match, which saw thousands of Liverpool fans with tickets struggling to enter the stadium, with the kick off delayed for 35 minutes.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was hugely disappointed at the way that Liverpool fans were treated. An emergency meeting has been held by French authorities following the game in Paris, with the British government asking European football's governing body UEFA for a thorough investigation.

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The final was held at the Stade de France, in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, and saw Liverpool go head-to-head with Real Madrid in the final of Europe's premier football competition.

But ugly scenes ahead of the game, as fans tried to enter the stadium, tarnished the image of the French capital and raised questions about its ability to host sporting events as it gears up for the 2024 Olympics, as well as the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Social media footage obtained by CGTN Europe showed vast queues of Liverpool fans claiming to have tickets and some, including women and children, being repelled by tear gas and pepper spray. The closing of gates sparked concerns among hundreds of fans outside the Liverpool section but little obvious aggression from them. Hostility by police appeared to inflame frustrations.

Problems had been encountered even before getting to the final turnstiles with entry points into the wider perimeter blocked off, forcing fans through narrow passages that caused bottlenecks.

French reaction 

France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin looked to point the finger at fake tickets as well as the behavior of Liverpool fans. 

Darmanin said that out of the people arrested at the Stade de France last Saturday, "more than a half concerned British citizens." He claimed there had been an "industrial-scale" level of selling fake tickets, which in turn had caused Liverpool fans to turn up en masse without valid tickets.

While UEFA also put responsibility at the door of Liverpool fans initially. Yet thousands in the red colors of Liverpool were seen arriving hours before the game to be greeted by organizational disarray in the heat of the late afternoon.

"We need to take all the necessary steps to make sure this never happens again," said French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, at the start of the emergency meeting by authorities on Monday.

French politicians have focused on the lack of organization by the police. "The images are lamentable, they are disturbing, because we can clearly see that we are not prepared for events such as the Olympic Games," said far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon on Sunday, while his far-right rival Marine Le Pen called the incident a "humiliation" for France.

Far-right politician Eric Zemmour had also said the trouble was caused principally by local youths from the nearby Paris Seine Saint Denis district, rather than Liverpool fans.

"What we really have to bear in mind is that what happened first of all was this mass gathering of British supporters of the Liverpool club, without tickets, or with fake tickets," Oudea-Castera told RTL radio on Monday.

But she insisted that France was capable of hosting major sporting events. "I am not worried, I am very committed that we learn absolutely all the lessons from what happened on Saturday evening to improve everything," she said.

Calls for UEFA investigation

The British government called on UEFA to launch a formal investigation into what went wrong with officials from the stadium and French authorities. 

"The footage from the Stade de France this weekend was deeply upsetting and concerning," said the prime minister's spokesman. "We know many Liverpool fans traveled to Paris in good time ... and we're hugely disappointed by how they were treated.

"We are urging UEFA to work closely with the French authorities on a full investigation and to publish those findings."

Digital Minister Chris Philp told Sky News: "I was horrified to see those pictures of fans, including some children, disabled fans, being pepper-sprayed by police. From the pictures I saw, there was no obvious justification for that kind of behavior."

Ian Byrne, a Labour MP for Liverpool who was present in Paris, told Sky News that the fans had been treated "like animals."

"It was horrific – there's no other words to describe it. It was absolutely horrific and as someone who was at Hillsborough in 1989, it brought so many terrible memories flooding back," he said. Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, told The Associated Press "The stigma around English fans is being used by the French public authorities for cheap political gain." 

Censorship

There have also been reports that members of the media were "censored" by French authorities as they tried to report on the chaos at the stadium.

An AP reporter told the Sunday Times: "I got bundled into a hut by a security guard, told to remove accreditation and then forced to delete video footage of the crowd issues, otherwise I wouldn't be allowed back in."

Last year, French legislators gave the go-ahead for a controversial new law which means it is now an offence to maliciously share images that identify police officers. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the law would protect the police from online abuse and claims of violence. But opponents have said it curtails press freedom and police accountability.

AP's global sports correspondent Rob Harris said: "UEFA staff had to intervene to prevent security personnel going after media to stop filming as tear gas was being deployed." Harris told CGTN's Global Business he had a clear view of the French police using tear gas as a "first resort" to disperse the crowd. 

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Similar issues at previous UEFA games

This is an ongoing problem for UEFA. Before the England vs Italy final of Euro 2020, which was delayed to last summer due to the pandemic, ticketless England fans clashed with police and stewards as they attempted to get into the stadium. It led to England receiving a two-match stadium ban, with one of those suspended for two years, and a €100,000 ($107,742) fine.

In the Europa Conference League final earlier this month between Italian club Roma and Dutch club Feyenoord in the Albanian capital Tirana, there was trouble as fans fought with police using bottles, sticks and stones.

"In the early hours of this morning we deported – via the sea port of Durres – 80 Italian hooligan fans," police said. "As a result of violence against police from the fans of both teams, we have 19 officers injured and one of them is injured with a knife," said deputy general director of Albanian police Albert Dervishi.

In the Europa League final between Rangers and Eintracht Frankfurt in Seville, there were complaints by fans over the behavior of police. Rangers fans said that they had items taken off them like ear pods, make-up bags and batteries, while at the same time in the stadium there was a lack of water, as temperatures hit 35 degrees celsius.

Rangers, Eintracht Frankfurt and Football Supporters Europe are to make recommendations to UEFA following the concerns.

Ticket allocation

There have been constant complaints about UEFA's ticketing policy for major events in recent years, with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp criticizing the decision to make just 20,000 seats available to his club. 

More than 50,000 Liverpool supporters are believed to have traveled to Paris hoping to get their hands on the 12,000 tickets that had been allocated to fans worldwide earlier in the year.

Of the 75,000 seats in the Stade de France, 23,000 – almost a third – were reserved by UEFA for sponsors, hospitality providers, broadcasters and UEFA members. Supporters groups continue to question the policy, claiming not enough seats are made available for the fans of the teams in the final.