Champions League chaos proves football is run by authorities hostile to fans

For once, it is the still photos that capture the scene better than the videos. Were you to base your impression of the hellscape in Paris on Saturday night on the grainy, shaky moving footage alone, you would probably conclude that it was a lawless, seething moshpit of disorder: of youths scaling spiked fences, gates being rattled and clattered, a ceaseless stream of teargas and baton charges. But the overwhelming sensation being conveyed by the thousands of fans massed outside the Stade de France was stasis: the quiet, festering frustration of nothing moving, nothing changing, nothing happening, a sea of thwarted humanity waiting patiently for hour upon hour, as if queueing for bread.

So much for the what. The manifold indignities and inconveniences visited upon fans at the Champions League final on Saturday – long lines, denial of entry, a lack of stewarding and security, police brutality – have been well documented in the subsequent days. What’s missing from all this is any sense of the why. Why did Uefa and the French authorities allow this showpiece occasion to degenerate so catastrophically? Was it simply a large-scale outbreak of bureaucratic incompetence? Or was something more sinister at work?

Perhaps the most confusing element of the trouble on Saturday was its randomness. Some Liverpool fans immediately cried establishment vendetta, but in fact Real Madrid fans were also caught up in the chaos. VIPs and corporate guests complained of intolerable queues and heavy-handed treatment. The Spanish minister for sport reported having to wait an hour to gain entry to the stadium. Even the commentator Jim Beglin – no, not Jim Beglin – told of being mugged outside the Stade de France by armed gangs.

None of the