South Africa says it is impossible the Ivory Coast stadium tragedy of last week in which 19 people died will be repeated in the World Cup South Africa is hosting next year. However, South Africa s history of soccer stampedes belies its confidence.
Ellis Park and Orkney stadiums attest in the grimmest terms that South African stadiums can be death traps. In Ellis Park Stadium in April 2001, 43 people were crushed to death, the worst sporting accident in South African history. The second worst soccer toll in South Africa, in Oppenheimer Stadium in Orkney, mirrored Ellis in that it coincidentally involved the same two teams, Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates. Forty-two people died in that 1991 stampede after too many fans were admitted.
Danny Jordaan, who heads the 2010 South Africa World Cup organizing committee, pledges that the problems which led to stadium stampedes in his country, the Ivory Coast and elsewhere would not be an issue during his tournament. When the World Cup comes to South Africa, match tickets will have to be purchased well in advance. Fans without tickets would be stopped kilometers away. Stadium gates will open early, three hours before kickoff, and public transportation to stadiums will be improved – all to reduce anxious crowds.
We hope Jordan s confidence and the steps he is taking are good enough because hundreds of people have been killed in stadium riots and stampedes in Africa over the last decade. The worst in Africa was the Ghana stampede in 2001, a disaster that took the lives of 127 people. In June 2007 a stampede killed 12 soccer fans in northern Zambia. In June last year, 10 people died in a crush in Liberia as spectators jostled to get into an already overcrowded stadium in Monrovia.
Soccer stadium disasters are not confined to Africa. Heysel killed 39 people in 1985 and 96 perished in the Hillsborough calamity of 1989. The deadliest stadium disaster worldwide took place in Moscow in 1982, when 340 people were reportedly killed in fan stampede at a European Cup match.
The biggest difference between the stampedes in Africa and the West appears to be the indiscriminate use by untrained security guards of tear gas. In the Ivory Coast last week, shortly before a World Cup qualifier, there were more people outside the 35,000-capacity Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium than inside. The big attraction was home-grown hero Didier Drogba, regarded as something of a semi-god by his countrymen. Crowds of spectators who didn t have tickets were pushing and shoving almost an hour before the start of the game. The sheer number of people who wanted to get into the match proved too much. They tried to force their way in. Then a wall collapsed.
But the firing of tear gas at the stampeding fans seems to have caused even more panic.
If tear gas was to blame in the Ivory Coast, it would be the fourth time since 2001 that police firing tear gas have set off deadly stadium stampedes in Africa. In 2000, 13 fans died at a match in Zimbabwe after police fired tear gas into the 50,000-strong crowd. A year later came the debacle in Ghana after security forces fired tear gas into the stands in response to fans who threw bottles and chairs. Another seven people were crushed to death in a 2001 stadium stampede in Lubumbashi, Congo, after police fired tear gas.
Tear gas or not, the devastation is always the same, as are its reasons: Design faults in stadiums, lack of security planning, and ticket corruption that allows you to get into an already overcrowded stadium. And little soccer savvy, if any. Thousands of African fans buy their tickets only when they reach the stadium. They often arrive late to do that, creating an impatient crowd outside that can spark an incident. The results are people trodden upon, right into their tombs.
Because soccer flourishes in places where there is little money for emergency services or to fix dangerously rundown stadiums, the least that can be done is to instill in the public the need to be more organized or else become a member of a makeshift morgue.
Soccer is a mass spectator pursuit – extremely popular in countries which have a lot of people — a mass influx of nationalistic and fervent followers who are overexcited and at times malevolent. Especially in the months of April and May, when cups and championships are decided, stadiums cannot withstand the masses crowding inside and the fever literally hits fever pitch.
Stadium accidents are far too common in Africa, where soccer is intimately entwined with national pride, all the more reason why stadium control ought to be different. Stadiums must have more and bigger escape outlets that are unlocked if thousands need to get out. Supporters must think and act differently. Tear gas fired into crammed crowds must be permanently banned. Only then will the world s most popular sport stop killing its followers.
