Martin Kallen, a UEFA official, was heard by the Senate on Tuesday morning as part of the investigation into the incidents in the Champions League final on May 28.
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Figures that continue to speak. While the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had maintained before the senators the controversial figure of “35,000 supporters“With counterfeit tickets or without tickets, an official from UEFA, the organizing body of the Champions League, beat this total on Tuesday, June 21.
Facing the senatorial delegation responsible for shedding light on the events, Martin Kallen, the managing director of UEFA Events, a subsidiary of the European body responsible for commercial event operations, put forward the figure of 2,600 counterfeit tickets scanned on 28 May. “But many counterfeit tickets never reached the turnstiles (…) How many? We don’t know, we couldn’t really check. It is not believed that this was the figure mentioned after the first days in France, more or less 30,000 to 40,000″he asserted.
In the first hours after this stormy final between Real Madrid and Liverpool (1-0), Gérald Darmanin had held the British supporters responsible for the incidents, citing “massive fraud” on the ticket office and arousing the anger of supporters’ associations. Before the senators on June 1, the Minister of the Interior then sketched a mea culpa on the organization of the final during his hearing, while maintaining his controversial version on the number of counterfeit tickets.
Heard by the senators, Martin Kallen detailed the causes which led to the chaotic scenes of May 28. “There are many: transport strikes, bad reactions from stewards, law enforcement, there have been criminals [dans le périmètre], an extremely large flow in front of the stadium without tickets or with counterfeit tickets“, he developed.
He made it clear that UEFA would take “some measures“which she would communicate later, pending the conclusions of the independent investigation she commissioned at the end of May.”We thought the investigation would take at least two or three months. As it starts now, you could say somewhere in September“, advanced the Swiss leader. Fans of Liverpool and Real Madrid must in turn be heard by the Senate at 4:30 p.m.