'IT WAS SCARY'
We were tear gassed and pepper sprayed at Champions League final – it was horrific and police laughed, says Roman Kemp
ROMAN Kemp has revealed he and his friends were pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed by French police at the Champions League final.
The Capital radio host managed to get tickets to see Liverpool take on Real Madrid inside Paris's Stade de France on Saturday.
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But the event was marred by heavy-handed cops using chemicals on innocent Liverpool fans as they patiently queued to get into the ground.
Among those affected in the horrific scenes were were children, the elderly and disabled fans.
Roman addressed the chaos on the radio this morning and set about putting the record straight amid reports the travelling English fans were to blame.
He said: "Let me say, they [Liverpool fans] were fantastic. Every bar that I went to the Liverpool fans were respectful of the owners, they weren't spilling out onto the street. It was great.
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"Honestly, they were sticking to their areas, there was no trouble, I didn't see one fight or anything that people associate with with 'football hooliganism' and things like that. There was nothing, [everyone was] really, really polite."
His group arrived at the ground around 6.15pm, nearly three hours ahead of kick-off.
They found that the authorities had created a channel for the Liverpool fans to walk down, which Roman said was dangerously inadequate.
He continued: "The second - the second - we got there, it was hostility straightaway. There were just police vans everywhere. But so many police vans that what they were doing was, they only created… put it this way, you've got 20,000 Liverpool fans, right 20,000 of them.
"The only gap that they were allowing people to walk through, down a narrow alleyway, concrete wall either side, the only gap that they were allowing was, like, 70 to 90 centimetres wide. So even for one person, you had to turn to the side to get through it."
The claustrophobic throng led to his friend having a panic attack.
Roman then said laughing officers began dispensing spray at the crowd for no reason whatsoever.
"And people are panicking," he said. "I saw you know, there were boys there, young kids were in there, people trying to hold up their kids.
"And literally, like, nothing was happening. Nothing was happening. It was the worst experience I've ever had in a football ground.
"And I was seeing disabled fans, I saw one lad who had his dad who was obviously visually impaired, and the police just pushed him. Like, you know when you're just like 'what is going on?'
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The radio called for an investigation into the trouble, pointing out all the Madrid fans safely made it into the ground without hostile treatment.
Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp airs weekdays from 6am – 10am on Capital and Global Player
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