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New York Times
05-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Liverpool endured chaos and fear in Paris in 2022. Many fans are not ready to return
Phil Blundell and some fellow Liverpool-supporting friends were at a cafe by the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris on the day of the 2022 Champions League final. When they set off for the Stade de France, there was no sense of drama. The sun was shining and it was more than three hours before kick-off — plenty of time, even allowing for the train strike which had stopped anyone travelling to La Plaine, one of the two metro stops serving the southern end of the stadium where Liverpool supporters had been instructed to approach from. Advertisement The carriages on the RER line rattling towards the suburb of Saint-Denis were extremely busy and the crowds at the metro stop were huge. This was at around 5.30pm, two and a half hours ahead of kick-off between Liverpool and Real Madrid. Blundell was concerned. 'The signage from the station was vague and people were guessing which way to go,' he remembers. There was no attempt to direct anyone back towards the route from La Plaine, easing the load. Instead, everyone seemed to be heading towards the same access point, one that was already bursting at several times its capacity. To make matters worse, local police tried to secure the scene by reversing vans into an underpass below a motorway where the space was already uncomfortably tight. Blundell could see a checkpoint at the bottom of a ramp in the distance. 'It was probably able to do about 30 people a minute,' he recalls. 'There were easily 10,000 or more in the queue. It doesn't take great maths to work out there was a problem.' A crush was beginning. On the concourse above, fans who had made it through were having panic attacks. Temporarily, organisers gave up on the checkpoint, but that decision knocked problems closer to the stadium. Gangs of pickpockets had been operating in the underpass. Unchecked and now outside the gates, they were confronted by French police, who acted indiscriminately. Amid pitched battles, families with children were truncheoned and tear gassed, with others being attacked by locals; later, some suffered life-changing injuries. 'I found the Gendarmes to be unnecessarily confrontational, lacking in people skills, short of any ability to do anything that wasn't just haphazard at best and dangerous at worst,' says Blundell, who was able to make it to his seat safely. The football, when it finally started after a delay which UEFA unsuccessfully tried to pin on supporters due to their 'late arrival', came as some relief. Yet there was a 'peculiar' atmosphere throughout a match Liverpool would lose 1-0. 'Not like a European final,' Blundell says. 'The whole thing just didn't feel real.' Tonight, Liverpool return to Paris for the first time since that dark day in 2022. It is the same competition and the same local police force — which was found to have 'failed in its duty to protect people' by an independent report last year — but the circumstances are very different. Liverpool are not playing in Saint-Denis, but at Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes stadium, in the west of the city. Around 60,000 Liverpool fans were estimated to have travelled to the French capital for the final three years ago; for this last-16 tie, the club have been allocated just 2,000 seats. The occasion, and the atmosphere around it, will be very different, which is one of the reasons why Blundell can rationalise returning to Paris. 'Saint-Denis and Paris are mentally detached for me,' he says. 'But I can understand why it isn't for others.' GO DEEPER 'He hit me with a hammer': Fans recall the chaos of the Champions League final For Danny Smith, the underpass in Saint-Denis stirred horrendous memories. He was 14 years old in 1989 when he experienced a crush in the Leppings Lane end at Hillsborough, where 97 Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed due to the organisational failings of the authorities. Thirty-three years after surviving the worst stadium disaster in British history, he was trying to leave Stade de France with his teenage son when he was ambushed by a gang, who smashed his knee with a hammer and rummaged through his pockets before stealing his possessions in front of police while they stood watching. 'This is Saint-Denis,' one of them commented. Advertisement With no ambulances available, Smith was told he would have to make his own way to hospital. His priority was getting his son back to Merseyside safely so rather than seek urgent medical treatment for his shattered leg, he embarked on the journey via a train to Nantes, around 250 miles (400km) away. At Liverpool's Royal Hospital, X-rays revealed he had suffered three fractures to the upper part of his tibia. He was transferred to Aintree University Hospital for surgery the following day where surgeons had to rebuild his knee, comparing it to a 'box of lego because bits were everywhere'. He would spend the next couple of months in a hospital bed. At one point, it seemed as though he would become an amputee because his leg was damaged so badly; while that was avoided, his injuries have left him unable to return to work at a company that produces car seats. He is yet to receive compensation and a settlement with UEFA involving thousands of fans suffering from physical and mental trauma is ongoing. Smith is grateful for the help he received from the club he supports. Liverpool paid for his treatment at a rehabilitation company part-owned by the club's first-team physiotherapist Chris Morgan. But the idea of returning to Paris for tonight's game is unthinkable. 'I've not been to a European away game since and I certainly wouldn't ever go back to Paris,' Smith insists. 'In fact, my son and I agreed that we would never go back to France. Daniel had the chance to go to Euro Disney but he didn't even want to go there. 'We've still got our season tickets for Anfield. I've missed a couple of night matches with the cold weather. I just feel so worn out some days. We've been to a few away games in the Premier League this season but it takes a lot out of me.' 'I'm about 40 per cent of the person I was,' he adds. 'There's the ongoing issue with mobility but it's also about the trauma. I'd say dealing with the mental side of things has been even worse than the physical side of the assault. I thought I was going to lose my son that night. It brought back so much from being in the Leppings Lane. Advertisement 'I know some lads who are going over to Paris this time but none of them are taking their kids.' Smith attends meetings held at Anfield once a month with the Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance (HSA), who arranged for him to have individual psychotherapy. He says there are Liverpool fans who are still coming forward, affected by what happened in Paris nearly three years ago. 'Survivors' guilt is something a lot of people suffered with after Hillsborough, and Paris brought a lot of that back to the surface. I found the therapy really useful.' Peter Scarfe, the chair of the HSA, says the organisation is aware of five suicides since Paris. In 2023, the family of Paul Marshall told the Liverpool Echo that the Hillsborough survivor took his life after behavioural changes following the final. 'We saw a huge spike in people reaching out to us in 2022,' Scarfe says. 'A lot of Hillsborough survivors were triggered by what they witnessed. Not all of them went to Stade de France, for some just watching on TV was harrowing enough. It brought back a lot of difficult memories. We have a WhatsApp support group and we provide individual therapy for those who need it. 'Getting drawn against PSG and the prospect of fans going back to Paris led to more people coming forward to contact us. Many have vowed never to go to Paris again. I'm only aware of one person in our group who has decided to go.' The ongoing work of the HSA has been boosted by financial support from both the LFC Foundation and the Football Association. On Monday, Scarfe was involved in a meeting with representatives from the French police, who spoke with fan groups through an interpreter. 'We received the reassurances we were looking for over crowd control and what plans are in place for the 2,000 fans going over there,' Scarfe says. 'They acknowledged that the behaviour of Liverpool fans in recent years has been exemplary and that they regard this game as low-risk. Advertisement 'They also explained that the two stadiums are very different and that it would be much safer this time in terms of the route for fans to take. They were appalled by how it was policed last time. There will be vans blocking side roads but not narrowing the actual route to the ground like we saw at the 2022 final.' Having dispatched operational staff to Paris a few weeks ago as part of standard preparation for a European tie, Liverpool are confident of a safe passage for supporters due to the game taking place in a different part of the city, where transport links are expected to be better. Manchester City's recent Champions League tie at Parc des Princes passed off without problems, although travelling fans have been warned not to use line 10 of the Paris metro system, which is used by the PSG ultras supporters, and take line 9 instead. He, and many others, are hoping lessons have been learnt by their counterparts, several hundred kilometres to the north. (Top image: Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic, images: Getty Images)
The Independent
27-02-2025
- The Independent
Police officer accused of killing his British ex-wife and her new partner after both shot dead in France
A police officer is accused of killing his estranged British wife and her new partner after they were shot dead in France. Alison Erb, a 49-year-old nursery manager originally from Norfolk, was found dead on 25 May 2023 alongside her 51-year-old partner Loreto Di Salvatore at their apartment in Roppentzwiller, a village near the border with Switzerland and Germany. Both were found with gunshot wounds and a small-calibre revolver was found at the scene, according to local reports. Her estranged husband, Olivier Erb – a serving police officer who lived in the nearby town of Wittenheim – was arrested and has since admitted 'liability' for the killings. He was indicted last April, and a French judge will now decide what charges he will face. The details of the arrest have only emerged this week. The couple had been in the process of divorcing and Erb had twice been investigated on suspicion of verbally abusing and harassing his wife with malicious calls, in 2020 and 2022 respectively, according to local reports. Firefighters are reported to have discovered the bodies when they entered the flat above the town hall and the village's main street through a balcony, after neighbours raised the alarm about dogs barking in the building. Police began an investigation and found Alison – whose maiden name is Knott – and Mr Di Salvatore had been shot three times each. At the time of the killings, Erb was reportedly banned from visiting her home or contacting his estranged wife, and both victims had told relatives of their concerns about him. Alison had installed a surveillance camera at the property, and footage seen by police reportedly showed her leaving the flat on the day of her death, shortly before a figure dressed in black and wearing a hood and gloves entered. Mr Di Salvatore was killed on the first floor of the property. Eight minutes later, Alison returned and was killed on the stairs leading up to the first floor. The figure in black was then seen leaving the scene through a skylight window. Erb initially denied involvement in the deaths before later admitting liability. He has since been indicted for double murder, and a judge is set to determine which charge he should face. French lawyers, acting on behalf of Alison's family, said in a statement: 'We want to highlight the exceptional work carried out by the investigating magistrate in Mulhouse and the Gendarmes in Strasbourg, both past and ongoing, in determining the circumstances that led to the horrendous death of Alison Knott and her partner'. View more Alison attended Wymondham College in Norfolk at the age of 11 before going on to study nursery nursing at King's Lynn College. She worked as a nanny in Worstead, before moving to France in 1995 to work for a large family with several small children living in the Alsace region. She later married Erb and the couple had three children – two daughters now aged 26 and 15, and a 27-year-old son. At the time of her death, she had been managing a nursery in nearby Switzerland and had hoped to build a new life there with Mr Di Salvatore, 51. The couple had been renting the flat in Roppentzwiller while Mr Di Salvatore built a house for them to live in together. Alison's sister, who still lives in Norfolk but wanted to remain anonymous, described her sister as having 'a huge heart' and said her death had 'left a gaping hole in so many people's lives'. 'I am utterly heartbroken by the loss of my sister,' she said. 'I have never felt more alone. We're just 18 months apart in age. We were as close as only sisters can be. Ali and I would talk almost every day, as she did with her aunt who was like a mother to her. She took care of her aunt and nursed her to health when she was suffering from cancer. 'I still can't believe such a kind and beautiful soul has been stolen from the world.' Mr Di Salvatore was 'desperate to marry her', Alison's sister said, adding: 'He did all he could to keep her safe and make her happy. Their relationship was true love. This is the first time she has experienced this.' A spokesman for Norfolk Police said: 'The family of former Norwich woman, Alison Erb, are currently being supported by a specially trained family liaison officer.'
