No one can really say whether the problems that occurred outside the Olympic Stadium were inevitable, unavoidable or simply the fault of the ticketless Liverpool fans who tried to storm through the gates. But with security guards weeding out hundreds for possessing forged tickets, the Greek police were prepared for what came at them.

There were two incidents that took place just as the match was starting yesterday. Outside the outer ring, police in riot gear had to use teargas and batons to repel a group of fans who had tried to storm a gate. At about the same time, closer to the stadium, a group of 500 fans also tried to charge their way through a gate. The police there responded by simply shutting the gates, although they were forced to let a few fans through when the crush became dangerous. In both these incidents, Greek police reported that it was largely Liverpool fans involved.

The frustration of many of the fans would explain much of what happened outside the stadium. The small allocation of tickets to each club was known long before anyone reached Athens, but another issue has been the quantity of forged tickets that have been on the market. Police made 97 arrests for people possessing or selling forgeries, but they did not come close to burying the problem.

To get into the stadium, fans had their tickets checked three times, the first two were cursory glances, the third required the logos to be checked with a special infra-red device. It was here that hundreds of forgeries were being spotted and the hapless fans were told that no matter what they had paid for their tickets, they could not go any farther. Many of these forgeries had cost in the region of £500.

Expert View

This was a pale imitation of the 2005 European Cup Final

Joe Lovejoy

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BACKGROUND

• View from the stands

• No way back for Liverpool

• Show clearly not for the benefit of Mr Kuyt

• Italian press quick to rub salt into the wound

• Right tactics but you need luck too

Multimedia

• European Cup Final 2007

• AC Milan v Liverpool clockwatch

Related Links

• Dreams lie in ruins for Liverpool

• Athens helps put antique into oratory

• Champions League reaction: best of the web

With so many fans having paid so much to be disappointed, the two incidents at the gates last night can hardly have come as a surprise.

And they were not what we term “major” incidents of hooliganism. Overall, the atmosphere around this Champions League final has been convivial, save for a few incidents of fighting and bottle throwing in the city centre as fans without tickets watched the match on a big screen.

However, the lack of tickets has been the fans’ story since they arrived. Yesterday, Greek police arrested a 28-year-old British man for selling 50 forged final tickets to an Italian travel agent for ¤58,000 (about £34,000). With black market prices rising reportedly to ¤5,000, he was probably sniffed out because his prices were so reasonable.

Elsewhere, one Liverpool fan reported that a taxi driver had driven off with his ticket. He had taken his luggage, too, but that was of little concern. Police also reported that a fight over a ticket had broken out between two Liverpool fans and it had got so bad that they had to be treated in hospital.

Outside the ground, one man was in the process of giving his tickets to stewards when he was knocked to the ground and had both tickets taken from his hand. Those tickets were probably resold immediately at Irini station, the stop that feeds the Olympic park, because the market there before the game was rife. In the hours before the match, ticketless fans gathered there in hope. Many said they had never known tickets to be so scarce and many were holding high their personal “Tickets Wanted” advertisements; some were offering £1,500 a pair and getting nowhere.

Others had paid £100 for what they knew were forgeries but they hoped might get them through. “What have you got?” one fan asked another as they jostled in the first queue. “A piece of paper that’s as good as a piece of s***e,” he replied before turning to his teenage son. “Don’t worry, lad, we’ll get in. It’s the European Cup final, we always get in.” And how were they intending to do so? “We’re going to steam the c***s,” he explained.

Many of them did clearly succeed in getting in illegally because the Liverpool end last night was packed to the point where many feared it was becoming dangerous. The police were aware of a vast excess of bodies in the lower tier. When the game was still 30 minutes from starting, some fans at Gate 35 were screaming at stewards to stop letting any more people in.

As the match was played out last night, few inside would have known about the tales of despair from those left outside. The story last night was of AC Milan’s revenge on Liverpool for the events of 2005, but the other tale of Athens is the market for forged tickets, for many people are making huge sums of money from this and the fans are paying and they are doing so dearly.