One year on, Paris Champions League final chaos leaves scars

The game between Liverpool and Real Madrid at the Stade de France, in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, on May 28, 2022, was won 1-0 by the Spanish team.

Yet the occasion was overshadowed by the fiasco outside, with kick-off delayed by 37 minutes as fans struggled to get into France's national stadium after police funnelled them into overcrowded bottlenecks as they approached.

They then fired tear gas towards thousands of supporters locked behind metal fences on the perimeter to the stadium.

One year on, fans who were there remain traumatised by the experience.

John Marquis, a Liverpool fan from Guernsey who had tickets to attend the match with his daughter, never made it inside the stadium.

"It was after half-time when it really turned nasty," said Marquis, adding that he felt "the whoosh of a baton that missed my skull by millimetres".

He says he has not watched Liverpool since, and struggles with panic attacks and in crowded environments.

"It has literally been life-changing," he said.

"I have been diagnosed as suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

"I no longer have the strength or ability to follow Liverpool FC. I have and will never watch Liverpool FC again."

Like many Liverpool fans, the experience at the Stade de France brought back memories for Marquis of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which cost the lives of 97 of the club's supporters.

"Of course a lot of the people who were there (in Paris) were already at Hillsborough in '89 and it re-triggers obviously," Peter Scarfe, who survived that disaster but watched the Stade de France final on television, told AFP.

Scarfe called for people to be held responsible for the Paris chaos and said it was "frightening" that the same stadium will be