Chaos at Paris’s Stade de France mars Champions League final

The final between Liverpool and Real Madrid was postponed by over 30 minutes as police used tear gas to try to prevent people who did not have tickets from entering the stadium just north of Paris. Some ticket holders complained that they had only been allowed to enter the stadium for the second half of the match, which Real won 1-0.  

The Paris police prefecture said in a statement issued Saturday evening that before the match, "many supporters without tickets for the match or holding false tickets (had) disrupted access to the Stade de France, at the level of the external security perimeter". The stadium can hold around 80,000 people depending on the event.

European football’s governing body UEFA said fake tickets had caused the issue and that it would investigate further with the French authorities as well as the French Football Federation. UEFA's statement was welcomed by the UK ambassador to France, Menna Rawlings.

Commiserations to @LFC, after a valiant performance in the #UCLfinal . Disturbed by events before the game and welcome @UEFAcom commitment to investigate: we need to establish the facts. Any UK fans needing consular support should contact @UKinFrance on +33 1 44513100.

"We need to establish the facts," Rawlings tweeted, adding her "commiserations" to Liverpool following a "valiant performance".

Liverpool Football Club also issued a statement, saying: "We are hugely disappointed at the stadium entry issues and breakdown of the security perimeter that Liverpool fans faced. We have officially requested a formal investigation into the causes of these unacceptable issues." 

France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin tweeted that the blame lay with British supporters, a noun he qualified with French quotation