Champions League Final: Paris

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady speaks eloquently and passionately about the human impact that incidents such as this have. This brings back some terrible memories for many people. I think UEFA does understand that. She is also right to ensure that Liverpool fans have their say here. I encourage Liverpool fans to submit information to Liverpool FC, and I thank Liverpool FC for facilitating that information-gathering, which I understand will be passed on to the UEFA investigation.

Simultaneously, the French authorities are conducting an investigation. I repeat that the inappropriate behaviour of a few fans is as nothing compared with the huge impact on thousands of people who were behaving perfectly at the event and were treated abominably.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this urgent question and on the way he has represented the fans over the last week.

We need an apology from UEFA and French authorities for the chillingly familiar, knee-jerk lies blaming Liverpool fans, and we need the investigations, but I want to share with the House a few emails and comments I have had from constituents. Anthony said:

“We were very close to a disaster on Saturday night...we were being crushed, pushed, intimidated and assaulted.

It felt like an act of intimidation to get a reaction from fans.”

Suzanne said:

“I was crying and scared. My legs were like jelly. I was just in shock. For the first time in my life I felt old and vulnerable.”

Jon said that the police were behaving like

“thugs looking for a fight”.

Contrary to the narrative put out by French authorities, he believes that it was only

“the calm behaviour of the fans”

in not retaliating that

“saved events from turning fatal”.

What can the Minister do to ensure that the promised investigations get to the truth?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for his input and for sharing the harrowing experiences of some fans. Although I was not able to attend the event, I was, sadly, receiving live feeds of information from people texting me to tell me of really quite alarming experiences.

As I said, it is really important that we get to the truth and get to the bottom of what happened, and the French authorities and UEFA are committed to doing that. I join the hon. Member in thanking the fans who helped each other out. In particular, I understand that there was a lot of activity to protect children, the elderly and the disabled; that speaks volumes about the friendship and camaraderie of Liverpool fans when at home or abroad. I agree with the hon. Member and will make it very clear that we expect to get the full and complete story of what happened so that it does not happen again.