By: UME/ Marc Eynaud
UNSER MITTELEUROPA was the only German-language medium to date to report on the massive riots and violent attacks by migrants around the Champions League final in Paris last week. In France, the scandal finale is making waves, also because those responsible are once again not named for politically correct reasons.
At the heart of the scandal surrounding the famous night of the Champions League final are the numerous abuses and the refusal of the political class to take responsibility for their actions and an element that is largely unknown: the role of the stewards, the stadium employees, the responsible for looking after the spectators.
Usually this job is supervised and requires training. Theoretically, the task should be taken on by people who have been trained as safety officers. However, the explosive increase in requirements as a result of the threat of terrorism required an increase in staff. At the risk of losing quality? “A steward will work six hours, being paid SMIC minimum wage, and going home in the evening after standing in the cold sometimes all day and perhaps being insulted when he was near the ultras to get 60 euros . Do I want to do that for this sum? I’m not convinced of that,” said the president of the company that provides Metz club with stadium staff, in Le Monde (6/12/2021). “Former Intelligence agent Noam Anouar, who was stationed in Seine Saint Denis, was contacted by Boulevard Voltaire. Noam Anouar knows this department like the back of his hand, especially the Stade de France. He is the co-author of the book La France doit savoir (subtitle: A police officer tasked with surveillance of Islamists, narrated) with Willy Le Devin and was among the first to arrive at the scene during the November 13, 2015 attack. Of course, that drama was on his mind during the cataclysmic Champions League final. “It’s a technique as old as the world. We recruit some boys from the development next door and some big brothers to keep their friends in check. “Obviously not as effective as that… That can backfire, too,” Anouar sighs. If the recruits become accomplices to the troublemakers, it can backfire on you. Imagine if a terrorist were to benefit from the complicity of stewards designed to facilitate his entry into the stadium with a gun…” he warns.
Undertrained and underpaid staff who sometimes become accomplices of the scum. All of this was reflected in the Stade de France. An incomprehensible choice given the political and logistical challenges such a meeting entails. “You can see very well that the organization was lacking in several aspects, in particular due to poorly trained and incompetent stewards who were recruited via Facebook a week before the game. That wasn’t even the Ligue 2 level of the stewards,” said sports journalist Daniel Riolo in Le Figaro (30/5/2022).
The embodiment of this debacle is basically the rabble who entered France illegally and managed to get into the stadium without a ticket. It films itself claiming to have screwed France to parade at Hanouna the next day. “He said he wanted to n…er France and he succeeded,” complains Noam Anouar. The author of the book La France doit savoir (France must know) concluded by saying: “He tricked everyone, if I had my way he would already be on the plane”. At this point and from the stadium, the international fiasco of this final is indeed multifactorial. It’s the result of old troubles.