I had a ticket for the Champions League final on Saturday night and what I saw was absolute chaos.
I got to the ground at 6.30pm, well enough time to make the kick-off, which was scheduled for 9pm in France. But what should have taken me 15 minutes to walk from my taxi to enter the turnstile at Gate Z, took me almost three hours.
I first encountered problems on the main road police cordon which wouldn't let thousands of waiting Liverpool and Real Madrid fans pass to make it up the walkway which led to the perimeter of the stadium. Then fans on motorbikes turned up and they parked in front of the cordon of gendarmes. So no one was getting through there.
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So I walked along the road and there were a number of staircases leading to entry points to the stadium's perimeter, but security staff denied me access despite me having a genuine match ticket and they said I needed a pass around my neck to gain access here.
The security were only letting people in suits and VIPs through - I noticed 1998 France World Cup winner Christian Karembeu use one of these access points. The security advised me to head down the road to gain access.
So I walked down the road with my mate. I thought it would have been useful if the authorities had closed part of or all of the main road to allow fans to walk around more freely because it was so congested.
I found another walkway heading up towards the perimeter of the ground. At no point did I have my ticket checked. I could feel a lot of tension among supporters of both Liverpool and Real Madrid.
There had been no ticket check to gain access from the walkway to the perimeter area around the stadium and I did not see any pre-filtering of fans either. I thought back to the final in Madrid in 2019 and there were three ticket checks before I got to that stadium's turnstiles. In contrast, there was no organisation at the Stade de France on Saturday. I found it hard to believe that there wasn't anything in place before the turnstiles in Paris.
The atmosphere had an edge to it and I walked to my ticket entrance at Gate Z. En route, I heard a man shouting in French while he was running with an envelope in his hand. A woman chased after him shouting 'Give me my ticket!'. He had snatched her ticket from her. I looked back and a group of good citizens had stopped the man and the woman got her ticket back.
When I got to Gate Z, it was closed and there were thousands of fans waiting outside. I spoke to Liverpool fans I knew and no one knew what was happening. I spoke to a gendarme and she said Gate Z was closed and she had not been given a reason why.
So I queued at Gate X for 25 minutes and at the turnstile my ticket failed to scan - the stewards said my ticket will only get me in through Gate Z. I said Z was closed and there were a number of other Liverpool fans saying the same as me. Everyone was calm and after a while the gendarmes explained that Gate Z was re-opened so I made my way back.
I walked to Gate Z and it was in fact open again. Fans spoke about the chaos and the game had been put back to 9.15pm and then again to 9.30pm. During my wait to enter the stadium a young Parisian man tried to pick-pocket me and I saw a group of locals being chased by baton-wielding gendarmes which Liverpool fans had to get out of the way of quickly.
I also saw a number of upset female Liverpool fans who were crying and comforting each other. It was absolute chaos. I wasn't even bothered if I was going to see the match or not given everything that I had seen.
When I got through the turnstile I looked back and there were thousands of fans still waiting to get in. It was 9.20pm. Stadium stewards twice directed me to the wrong area of seating and I eventually found my seat myself. I looked up at the clock on the big screen and it was 4 minutes and 35 seconds into the match.
Speaking to people around me they all said it was chaos getting in - one fan said it was young locals who had created a lot of problems. The atmosphere was flat, obviously because of the ordeal everyone had just been through. This was meant to be one of the biggest games in world football and something to savour and relish, but it was far from that.
I didn't get pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed like a lot of other Liverpool fans, but the smell was still in the air and I was coughing a lot for the rest of the night, which was obviously uncomfortable.
After the match, I met my mate and we went to find a taxi in the Saint Denis area by the stadium. But the problems continued. A French lad walked towards my mate and he put his hand on my mate's chest. And another tried to open my small bag. We eventually got a cab and went back to our hotel.
There was no 'pre-filtering' of fans and there were no ticket checks and to hear the French government today say that there was is an absolute disgrace. The whole event was a shambles. The French authorities, the stadium security and UEFA should hold their heads in shame for what happened before and after the game.
