Liverpool fans were unfairly blamed for the fiasco surrounding the Champions League final to "divert attention" from organisational failures, a scathing French Senate report says.
The senate, the upper house of the French parliament, published its provisional findings on Wednesday, 46 days after the showpiece event at the Stade de France which was overshadowed by crowd problems before and after the match.
Liverpool fans were sprayed with tear gas and the match was delayed by more than half an hour to deal with overcrowding in the stadium surroundings, before the initial response from the French government condemned the Reds supporters and accused them of arriving with fake tickets.
The senate's report found rhetoric masked failures by the French authorities around the organisation of the match, saying: "It is unfair to have wanted to make supporters of the Liverpool team bear the responsibility for the disturbances that occurred, as the Minister of the Interior did to divert attention from the inability of the state to adequately manage the crowds present and to curb the action of several hundred violent and co-ordinated offenders."
The report found the chaos had been caused by a "chain of events and malfunctions" in the days and hours leading up to kick-off.
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