sport news SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Only Liverpool fans' memory of Hillsborough stopped ... trends now

The Mail on Sunday can reveal how close the chaotic scenes at the Champions League final and the breakdown of law and order came to causing fatalities after compiling a damning dossier of evidence on the controversial night in Paris.

Liverpool supporters caught up in huge crushes outside the Stade de France last Saturday only avoided serious injury because the memory of the Hillsborough disaster prompted them to act with unusual caution, our investigation has been told by crowd control experts.

This newspaper has also established the French police still do not consider there was anything unusual about their tactics of kettling supporters into narrow gaps, even though that technique has been described as a death trap by one of the UK's leading scientists on crowd dynamics.

Testimony from scores of supporters who have contacted The Mail on Sunday points to a massive IT failure having contributed to the chaos, directly contradicting the claims of the French police whom – it can be revealed – have launched a legal case to prove mass ticket fraud.

The fallout to the shocking scenes in Paris, which now see it ranked amongst the worst-managed European events since Hillsborough, where 97 fans died.

Moreover, the dystopian scenes of brutal violence meted out by Parisien gangs on fans of both sides have made the chaos a major political issue in France for President Macron, with the Olympics just two years away.

The Mail on Sunday's reporting last weekend has been repeatedly cited in France as a primary source to challenge interior minister Gerard Darmanin's contested claim that 40,000 ticketless fans were responsible for the breakdown.

Renowned French newspaper Le Monde using our video footage as part of their data investigation into the near tragedy.

The MoS has spent this week collating fresh evidence, having been contacted by many fans, and will present all their testimony to the independent inquiry that UEFA have commissioned.

Liverpool legend Alan Kennedy on Saturday joined those who have described their experience of the chaos. He needed to escape the crush by clearing a fence and admitted he feared for safety.

'If it wasn't for my son and if it wasn't for the people helping me get over the fence — and it was a metal fence which was difficult to get over — then I would have been in serious trouble,' Kennedy, who scored the winning goal in Paris against Real Madrid in the 1981 European Cup final, told CNN.

The MoS was also contacted by scores of witnesses, whose evidence reveals an astonishing lack of preparedness by the authorities, systemic failures around technology and crowd control as well as the horrifying attacks post-match on Real Madrid and Liverpool fans.

The Stade de France scandal is now a major political embarrassment for Macron, who says that he was 'outraged' by the disorder and wants fans who were barred entry to receive financial compensation.

His centrist alliance Ensemble face National Assembly elections this month and the nation's ability to host major sporting events safely is now an electoral issue, with a year until the Rugby World Cup and two years until the 2024 Paris Olympics, both of which are centred on the Stade de France.

UEFA have also apologised to fans and it is understood key officials have confirmed they witnessed no bad behaviour from Liverpool fans and that they will now seek to compensate all fans with tickets who were denied access. 

Although it has not been acknowledged publicly, it is accepted at UEFA that the stadium announcement blaming the delay on the late arrival of fans was incorrect: fans had arrived on time but were locked out. 

They say there was a decisive shift in police tactics when local youths attempted entry to the ground after 8pm when indiscriminate tear gassing began. UEFA stress they relied on French authorities for information. 

The ruling body have commissioned an independent report into the multiple security breakdowns. It will be headed by Dr Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, a former minister for education in Portugal.

Professor Keith Still, who runs Crowd Risk Analysis Ltd, has developed an MSc in crowd safety, was consultant at Olympics Games at Sydney 2000 and London 2012 and the 2011 Royal Wedding and was an expert witness for the Hillsborough inquiry, contacted the MoS. 

He believes that only the shared collective memory of the Hillsborough disaster saved the crowd from multiple fatalities, because it prevented fans from pushing, which is not how fans usually behave under such pressure.

The key crush came under a motorway bridge at the south-west corner of the stadium leading to Gate X, where police had deliberately parked their vans to narrow access to a three to four-metre gap.

Prof Still has examined our video evidence and said: 'High density pressure is my specific area of study. It is a very dangerous thing to do. It's what causes fatalities. When you're in crush zone, it takes about 30 seconds to lose consciousness if you get constrictive or restrictive asphyxia. Within about six minutes you're brain dead.

'Whenever you funnel a large number of people down to a narrow space there is that inherit risk. It's basic crowd planning. You would never do it in any area. Any slip or fall in that environment would have been catastrophic. 

'Look at the queue design. I'm using that now as an example for my courses. This is not how to do it.' French police told the MoS it was normal practice and there was nothing unusual.

Professor Still said: 'I think the shared psyche of Hillsborough was one of the primary factors that saved lives. Those fans knew that if they pushed forward, they could die and therefore backed off. I don't see the same sort of forward impetus against these crush points that I have seen in other mass fatalities.

'Another set of supporters may not have shared that psyche. Because of that, a major incident has been averted as I don't see any evidence of authorities taking proactive steps to keep the crowd safe. I do see evidence of the crowd themselves not typically behaving the way a crowd would normally behave in that situation.'

Asked if he considered the crowd control at this point to be a death trap, Professor Still said: 'Yes. If the crowd pressure built up on the approach — it's only a few minutes before there is a significant risk to life and limb.'

Still suspects that a systematic breakdown of control was due to a failure to plan. Foremost among these failures was that 37,000 fans tried to access the stadium from Stade de France RER station on line D, which is four times more than the usual number. 

A sell-out concert on May 21 saw only 9,100 fans pass through that station. The partially-closed station on RER B, La Plaine Stade de France was used by 6,200 fans. Usually it would service 21,000 supporters.

According to Le Monde's investigation, the figures provided by the transport authorities contradict the French Government's claims. Darmanin has said 110,000 fans headed to Stade de France with 73,000 using public transport. But SNCF and RATP, the relevant transport authorities, say that 43,200 fans passed through the two RER stations. 

And though they don't have the figures yet for the two metro stations on line 13, also a key hub, it would be extraordinary if another

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