Disabled Liverpool fans to reveal horrific treatment at CL final

 


Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association Chair Ted Morris will give his account on what happened on the day of the Champions League final to the French Senate on Tuesday.

There were chaotic scenes ahead of the European showpiece between Liverpool and Real Madrid on May 28, with long queues to enter the Stade de France, people seen breaching fences, reports of robbery and pickpocketing by locals and police using tear gas on supporters.

French senators last week demanded the state recognise responsibility and identify guilty parties behind the chaos outside the national stadium that marred the event.

They also questioned why government officials allowed surveillance video of the scene, in which police pepper-sprayed fans and families, to be deleted instead of ordering it to be handed over to investigators.

Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of his appearance in Paris, Morris gave his account of the issues he faced that day in the French capital.

"We arrived at the station at 3pm and it was surprising that there wasn't a single police officer," he said.

We headed up towards the stadium and went to a McDonald's for three hours. In those three hours, I've never seen so many fans pickpocketed in my life - it was one after the other. It was absolutely bizarre. That gave us an insight into how this day was going.

Then we made our way round to the soft ticket check area, which just wasn't fit for purpose at all. There were local people just walking in. I had a conversation with one of our police officers from Merseyside Police at around 6.15pm and he was extremely worried by events.

"It was just chaotic. There was no organisation, no police presence on the turnstiles to help or even act as a deterrent.

"I had no interest in the game because, for two hours, I was getting text messages from people at the club and our disabled supporters about the distress that was going on outside, so the game just became irrelevant. We could have won 6-0 and I still wouldn't have cared.

I was going to leave at half-time and I got a message saying don't leave at half-time, it's not safe. So we stayed until the 86th minute, left the ground and the steward wouldn't open the gate. We had a heated discussion and he opened the gate because there were still loads of locals trying to get in.

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