Real Madrid win the 14th in unprecedented organisational chaos
Real Madrid won their fourteenth Champions League in Paris, already the fifth in nine years for the madridistas. Despite this, what promised to be a festive day of celebration was marked, first, by UEFA's organisational disaster and, shortly afterwards, by the crime that swept through the vicinity of the Stade de France. While the spectacle was supposed to be inside, what happened before and after the match will also go down in Champions League history.
UEFA had to postpone the start of the final on two occasions, with the match finally kicking off at the unusual time of 21:37. Stadium security was unable to hold back the hundreds of ticketless fans who wanted to bypass all the controls and gain access to the Stade de France, while others with tickets waited in long queues that did not progress. Television pictures showed fans climbing the outer fences to gain access to the stadium as quickly as possible, with or without a ticket. An organisational chaos that security agents could not control, and which went on and on until the start of the match.
The gate for Liverpool fans was not flowing. More than 20,000 English fans had travelled to Paris without a ticket and, given the organisation, they all wanted to get in. Helping each other, many of them ended up watching a game they had no right to see. If that wasn't enough, those who had already gone through with a ticket, sent the same ticket to others who had not, and who arrived at the gates with one that had actually already been read. All this delayed a match that, at times, seemed impossible to start.
But while what happened before the final was more the fault of UEFA than of other factors, what happened afterwards had nothing to do with the organisation, and everything to do with the criminality of a district of Saint-Dennis that left a very bad image. Organised criminals tried and succeeded in stealing wallets and mobile phones from dozens of fans leaving the stadium. Madrid fans had already suffered in the run-up to the match, when the Fanzone became a nest of criminals impossible for the French police to control.
They confronted everyone in their path, targeting mainly elderly people and women and asking for money, mobile phones, wallets... Fully organised robbers who caused panic outside the stadium. The fans decided to get together, as a group, to make themselves strong, but not even that. The metro also became a labyrinth from which getting out with all your belongings was the greatest success.
For all these reasons, this Champions League final will be remembered for a long time. The spectacle that took place on the pitch between two of the best teams of the moment was mixed with everything that happened outside, which was not little, and which sowed chaos on a day reserved for joy and celebrations, but which ended up leaving a very bad impression of both UEFA's functions and the level of delinquency that they manage in the French capital.