Liverpool accuse French authorities of 'deflecting responsibility' after Champions League chaos
Club issue statement following day of French government officials attempting to blame Liverpool fans for ugly scenes in Paris.
Liverpool have reacted angrily to the French government's ludicrous claims regarding the poor organisation at the Champions League final, accusing them of attempting to 'deflect responsibility.'
The kick-off had to be delayed on Saturday night with thousands of Liverpool supporters were held outside the ground despite having tickets for the game.
Tear gas was later used on some parts of the trapped crowds outside the ground, while gangs of youths reportedly mugged and attacked supporters before and after the game.
Both UEFA and the French authorities have already attempted to blame the chaos on Liverpool fans, but the club have immediately - and justifiably - come out fighting.
"I would just say we are incredibly surprised that someone in that position would make comments in the first place at this point, when we haven't had adequate time to understand what happened," Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan said.
"There hasn't been an independent investigation to establish all the facts.
"We should know all the facts to make sure that the scenes that we've all seen - absolutely disgraceful - from Saturday don't ever happen again.
We saw zero evidence that "up to 40,000 Liverpool fans turned up without tickets or with fake tickets" and zero evidence that "70% of Liverpool fans arrived with fake tickets". Simply not true. pic.twitter.com/qeRWxPYn8z
— Kaveh Solhekol (@SkyKaveh) May 30, 2022
"Making comments as deeply unhelpful as that, we just feel that everyone should be focused on getting the investigation right and less about making inflammatory comments that attempt to deflect responsibility for what happened on Saturday night.
"I think it's important that folks know that our chairman, Tom Werner, sent a letter to the French minister to articulate our views and is calling for an apology to our fans for those comments.
"To say our fans didn't turn up on time is crazy.
"My colleagues across the club, our ownership and I, we all saw it with our own eyes. We were outside the ground, on the ground, in those crowds and from everything I saw, our fans arrived early and they were queuing as directed by authorities."
The French government angered Liverpool earlier in the day with the string of unsubstantiated claims that lay the blame for the scenes in Paris at the feet of the club's supporters.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said: "There was massive fraud at an industrial level and organisation of fake tickets, 70 per cent of tickets were fake tickets coming into the Stade de France.
"The massive presence of the fake tickets was the issue which meant there were delays, three times the match was delayed."
Meanwhile, French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera added: "The major point is to try to understand precisely what happened during this massive fraud.
"There are witnesses and the figures corroborate this - 30,000-40,000 people without tickets or with fake tickets and we saw some fake tickets."