Disabled Liverpool supporter slams French minister's Champions League final 'lies'

31 May 2022, 10:31 | Updated: 31 May 2022, 10:46

Chairman of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association speaks to Nick Ferrari

Chairman of the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association Ted Morris, who was in France for the Champions League final, has accused the country's interior minister of telling "lies".

The exchange between Nick and the caller has come after Saturday's UEFA Champions League final chaos, in which fans were pepper sprayed by French authorities.

French interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said there was a "massive, industrial-scale and organised fraud" with fake tickets for Saturday final.

Mr Darmanin claimed 30,000-40,000 Liverpool fans turned up without genuine tickets, overwhelming authorities.

However Liverpool supporters who were at the scene have rejected this account, and have instead placed the blame on organisers.

Liverpool FC chief executive Billy Hogan has branded the treatment of fans "unacceptable" and urged UEFA to conduct a "transparent investigation".

Mr Morris, who uses a wheelchair and was at the game, gave LBC's Nick Ferrari his account of what happened.

Nick asked: "Mr Morris, can you tell us how the night was for you?"

In response, Mr Morris said: "It was horrendous. Start to finish, it was horrendous.

"We arrived at the stadium at 3.15PM. For the first three hours, until we actually went in the parameter of the stadium - we just seen local youngsters, youths just pickpocketing, robberies - without police doing anything.

"When we actually went through the first soft ticket check, again local youths just pushing past without being challenged by stewards or police.That was where the problems were starting."

READ MORE: Stade de France chaos 'very similar' to Hillsborough disaster, Liverpool fan tells LBC

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He added: "I'm a wheelchair user. As we got in the accessible entrance, we'd had three wheelchair who'd been there for an hour waiting to get in because the turnstiles weren't working. We had to get someone from Liverpool to get us in.

"A steward fell on top of one of the young girls in the wheelchair. This is about 6.15PM. Personal assistants distressed. It was just horrendous.

"You could see the problems were already starting by 6.15PM when there was already thousands of Liverpool supporters around the stadium."

Speaking about the police, Mr Morris said: "They weren't there, Nick. The police weren't there.

"As we went through the soft ticket check, there was about five armed police who were just watching what was going on.

"When we got round the turnstiles, there was young inexperienced stewards. There was no police presence whatsoever. I mean none."

Speaking about his experience after match, Mr Morris recalled how there "must have been about 200 of these youths [who] just ran down the side of us, making these noises I've never heard before".

Mr Morris explained: "They were running into the crowd just robbing people, bottling us. Then when we actually got to the station and we thought we were safe, that's where we seen the police.

"They then started tear-gassing and pepper-spraying Liverpool supporters who were looking for safety. It was like a scene out of a war zone, not coming out of the Champions League final."

He later said: "We had [an] eight-year-old disabled boy pepper-sprayed. We had wheelchair users pepper-sprayed and CS gassed."

Mr Morris also claimed that there were blind supporters getting tear-gassed.

He also said: "After the game, they wouldn't open the turnstiles. We had wheelchair users getting crowd-surfed over turnstiles."

"And for this French interior minister to tell the lies that he has - lie after lie after lie to try and blame Liverpool supporters - it's shocking."

READ MORE: 'Heavy echoes of Hillsborough': Shelagh Fogarty's moving reaction to CL final chaos