Dublin Liverpool fan ‘relieved to be alive’ after Champions League ‘nightmare’

A Liverpool fan who feared he would be crushed to death at the Champions League final has ridiculed claims ticketless supporters were to blame.

Dubliner Christopher Brien, 50, told French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera it was bad organisation and incompetent policing that nearly cost him his life.

He was trapped with hundreds of supporters in a crush outside the Paris stadium and scrambled for his life when cops refused to let them pass.

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The hero managed to save the lives of young kids who were screaming for help amid fears of another Hillsborough disaster when 96 fans died in 1989.

He was then pepper-sprayed by riot cops as he tried to show his ticket.

Christopher said: “It is a disgrace what happened. Liverpool fans are being unfairly blamed for what was a problem created by the organisers.

“I didn’t get in and I had tears in my eyes when I realised I wasn’t getting in the ground. But afterwards, I was just relieved that I was safe and alive.

“Saturday should’ve been a dream but it was a nightmare.

“It was very scary. People were really getting squashed. I managed to climb on top of a TV camera van.

“Fans were screaming for help and some were shouting, ‘This is another Hillsborough’. It was bad.

“After we got the kids out, I climbed down the other side of the van and saw paramedics treating a man for a suspected heart attack.

“The cops charged at us and barged into me. I’d given up and just wanted out of there, so I was just trying to ask for directions to the Metro. My other half at home and my daughter were watching on TV and were crying as they texted to ask if I was OK.

“I saw two fans’ heads sliced open by locals with knives and the police were doing nothing to stop them.

“I heard cops pointed guns at fans and were pepper-spraying and tear-gassing indiscriminately without provocation.

“We posed no threat. People were just showing their tickets. My eyes were stinging. Thierry Henry criticised the location of the stadium beforehand and now we know why.” Mrs Oudea-Castera’s claims were backed by France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin and UEFA who said fans with “counterfeit tickets, forced entry” to the showpiece game which Liverpool lost 1-0.

But French MEP Jerome Riviere accused him of spreading a “lie” and demanded he “apologise” for “having accused” fans with “shameful fake news”.

Liverpool FC and UK politicians have called for a formal inquiry and last night UEFA launched an independent review.

Liverpool MP Ian Byrne told RTE yesterday: “We’re back in 1989 territory where the lies and smears about
Hillsborough went out really quickly and that narrative was set”.

Meanwhile, crowd behaviour expert Professor Clifford Scott accused the French government of “knee-jerk”
reactions.

He said: “Key decisions like restricting the movement of fans towards the stadium and closing gates at the
turnstiles and firing tear gas into a densely crowded area was a very poor decision.

“If there is one actor here in all of this who we should be asking questions of it would be Parisian police.”

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