Liverpool's health boss Matt Ashton shared his experience of the chaotic scenes at the Stade de France before and after the UEFA Champions League final.
The director of Public Health at Liverpool City Council went over to France with two of his cousins and a wider group of football friends to the match and met his brother in the French capital. The 48-year-old said the group had a "lovely time" before this all changed when they got to the stadium.
Writing a blog for Liverpool City Council, Prof Ashton said: "The atmosphere at all times was fantastic, with Liverpool fans well used to travelling Europe and experiencing success. However the experience at the Stade de France was very different. We arrived in plenty of time for the match – more than two and half hours before kick off.
READ MORE: Police called to rescue TUI passengers 'abandoned' on plane
"Progress from the St Denis Station to the stadium was extremely slow, held up by local police on a number of occasions, before reaching the subway under the main road. It was there that there the queues really started, with no obvious reason for the delays and no communication.
"Eventually we reached the edge of the stadium, but it was very uncomfortable, with people very closely packed together – old, young, and everyone in between all together. I am six foot tall and my brother is 6ft 6in, so we are big and can handle ourselves in a crowd. Many others were a lot smaller than us so I can’t imagine how they found it."
Prof Ashton said having experienced the Hillsborough disaster "first hand", he knows the danger of crowds of people in confined spaces and this is what put him off travelling "to Europe with Liverpool until Madrid in 2019." The health boss said fans were growing "frustrated but were impeccably behaved at all times".
He added: "The fans were growing frustrated, but were impeccably behaved at all times, calling out for people to create space so people didn’t get crushed. The police and stewards looked on but didn’t intervene at any point – they caused the problem by bottlenecking people, but were seemingly not interested in finding a solution.
"When we finally reached the turnstiles, I was stunned to see several of them out of action, and a distinct lack of urgency in getting people into the stadium. We finally got to our seats after 90 minutes, around an hour before kick off.
"It was clear that lots of fans were going to be delayed getting in, and we were desperately hoping that everybody outside was going to be OK. Some people had to have their ticket scanned a number of times before gaining admission, which perhaps could mean the scanning system was temperamental."
He said when the match ended, he and many other LFC fans "wanted to leave quickly" but were met with "chaotic scenes" once again. Prof Ashton added: "We were pointed in the direction of one small door, inside a metal barrier, at the end of our section.
"Ironically we were now being kept inside the stadium rather than outside of it. Bottlenecks were created, with crowds shouting at the stewards to open the gates and let us out. This was another scary point for me, thinking I would be crushed against the gates in the rush. One steward tried to open a gate but the gate swung in towards us, so actually created more of a problem.
"In the immediate aftermath, the rush to blame and deflection by UEFA and the French authorities, had all the hallmarks of the Hillsborough disaster about it. Institutions rushing to protect their own reputations and trash those of innocent people. Fortunately, we are now in an age of ‘citizen journalists’ who can capture the reality of the situation and post footage and photos on social media, to crush the false narrative."
The director of Public Health said he has been thinking about "what went wrong" and speaking to various authorities back in Liverpool. After speaking to Lucy Easthope, a leading authority on emergency planning, and she told Prof Ashton "if police resort to tear gas, pepper spray and batons and the narrative turns to blaming fans, their plan has failed."
He added "good emergency planning is essential" and Liverpool has "vast experience" over the last 20 years, including the Giants and LFC homecoming parade. He said: "It’s something that Liverpool has vast experience of over the last 20 years, from 2008 to the Giants and the LFC homecoming parade on Sunday which attracted a crowd of half a million people and saw no trouble or arrests.
"It could not have been a starker contrast to events in Paris, where what was meant to be a celebration of the best of European football saw fans being treated like cattle."
The chaotic scenes outside the stadium saw the game being delayed three times with thousands of seats empty in the Liverpool end of the ground. UEFA has now announced it will hold a full investigation into the scenes at the Stade de France.
There was widespread outrage at the chaotic organisation of the event as well as the attempts to blame Liverpool fans for what went on. Both UEFA and the French government have put out widely discredited statements about fans being late or the alleged scale of fake tickets, both of which have been strongly disputed by supporters and journalists who were there.
On Monday, LFC issued a request to all supporters who were in attendance to fill in a feedback form of their experience which can be found here.
