Jurgen Klopp has revealed how his family were caught up in the mayhem at the Champions League final in Paris as he insisted: “We must ensure this never happens again.”
The Liverpool boss has also questioned the wisdom of UEFA holding the showpiece event at the Stade de France after it was moved from St Petersburg following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
UEFA has launched an independent review into the shocking scenes in the French capital which saw supporters penned into dangerously tight spaces, teargassed by police and attacked by local gangs, who had scaled fences to force their way into the stadium without tickets.
It was only the day after Liverpool’s defeat by Real Madrid that Klopp became fully aware of what fans had been forced to endure.
“There are different things to talk about. Some of them I think it makes no sense to talk about because there is an ongoing investigation,” says Klopp.
“The situation outside? I heard about it first-hand from my family because they were in the middle of everything. They texted me before the game, ‘We are in, good luck’ stuff like this, but they were pretty much one and a half hours away from being in the stadium.
“What happened to them happened to everyone, pretty much. Two or three people I spoke to were lucky, they got in and were waiting. Then there were all the issues throughout the game. There were a lot of spots occupied definitely by people without tickets but they were not Liverpool supporters.
“This is pretty much the story everyone told — everyone had this experience. I think I knew 50 people inside the stadium, 47 people told me exactly the same story. That is obviously not how it should be.
“In the end, it felt for them — and they are passionate Liverpudlians — that the smallest problem we had that night was that we lost the game. Imagine that around the Champions League final. Crazy.
“We all know how beautiful Paris is and the big events they have got coming up in the next few years. But these kinds of things need to be sorted and clarified. I think we were really lucky that more did not happen. We have to make sure it does not happen again.”
French interior minster Gerald Darmanin initially blamed the problems on Liverpool fans turning up late and claimed thousands were in possession of fake tickets.
He has since backtracked with the French Senate launching their own investigation into what went wrong.
The final in Paris was a desperate end to what had been a memorable season for the club with Klopp’s men winning both domestic cups and losing out to Manchester City in the Premier League title race by a solitary point.
“For me, it’s not the last memory of the season to be honest. Mine is the bus tour, which was outstanding. But I was not outside the stadium, trying to get in,” he adds.
“It’s why everyone, the authorities, have to make sure this does not happen again. It was clear where it was (held) was a problem.