sport news There IS footage of the blunders from Paris police in the Champions League ... trends now

sport news There IS footage of the blunders from Paris police in the Champions League ... trends now
sport news There IS footage of the blunders from Paris police in the Champions League ... trends now

sport news There IS footage of the blunders from Paris police in the Champions League ... trends now

UEFA are understood to be incredulous that the vital CCTV footage at the Stade de France, which could have shed light on alleged police ineptitude in organising Liverpool's Champions League final, has been deleted, piling further pressure on the French authorities to explain why their operation went disastrously wrong.

However, in a breakthrough that could reveal the mistakes of the local police, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that France's main rail operator SNCF kept all of their video footage from the day of the event.

A spokesperson for the company, whose headquarters are adjacent to the Stade de France Saint-Denis RER station, said: 'CCTV footage is normally automatically erased after three days. In the case of the Stade de France events, the automatic erasure of footage was blocked and the footage was retained, as permitted by law for a period of 30 days.'

Many experts believe tragedy was only averted by chance and the calm behaviour of Liverpool fans after serial failures of crowd control, evidence of an IT breakdown in scanning tickets and the lawlessness of Parisian gangs.

UEFA's independent report, headed by Dr Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, was expected to make use of security footage in order to check claims made by French police that there were 40,000 ticketless fans in the vicinity of the stadium, a figure they have since admitted could be inaccurate.

Liverpool fans were tear-gassed by French police ahead of the Champions League final in Paris

Liverpool fans were tear-gassed by French police ahead of the Champions League final in Paris

French authorities blocked attempts to portray an accurate picture of the chaos at the match

French authorities blocked attempts to portray an accurate picture of the chaos at the match

UEFA chiefs discovered last week that the TV footage from the final had been deleted

UEFA chiefs discovered last week that the TV footage from the final had been deleted

But UEFA chiefs only discovered that the TV footage, which would have been vital to establishing whether the police accounts were credible, had been deleted when it was revealed in hearings at the French Senate on Thursday.

Security footage is deleted under French law after seven days unless the authorities request it is kept.

Despite the breakdown of law and order which attracted global embarrassment for France and a range of investigations and legal challenges, neither the French government, the police nor the judicial investigation in ticket-touting made a request. Footage from the RER and metro lines, the local railway network, has also been deleted.

Bruno Retailleau, leader of the Republican group in the French Senate, said: 'We're heading straight towards a state scandal,' claiming that the deletion of the footage was 'an intentional act to make evidence disappear as part of a cover-up'.

Officers deployed tear gas on supporters outside the Stade de France in an 'avoidable mess'

Officers deployed tear gas on supporters outside the Stade de France in an 'avoidable mess'

The fiasco has been described as a 'massive failure' by the authorities, leaving fans concerned

UEFA have launched an investigation into the incidents, with Paris now firmly under scrutiny

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