German authorities evacuated the Signal Iduna Park, the stadium of the Borussia Dortmund club, after finding an unexploded World War II bomb in parking west of the stadium. The bomb was discovered through aerial pictures. German television said that it was a British-made bomb, and that technicians disassembled it.
The bomb was found hours before the press conference that the trainer of Borussia Dortmund, Jürgen Klopp, was intending to hold, for statements regarding his team’s game against Schalke. The club issued a statement saying that they did not know how long the area around the stadium would be cordoned off.
Germans are used to finding WWII bombs, as the allies and Russia threw millions of tonnes of bombs during the war that took place between 1939 and 1945. The city of Dortmund witnessed huge destruction back then due to air strikes.
It is not the first time for football stadiums to face the threat of bombs or terrorism acts. In 2012, Israeli fighters bombed the Palestine Stadium in Gaza, destroying the southern wall of the stadium and a power generator, without causing casualties.
In the Iraqi city of Ramadi, in June 2013, a football stadium faced a terrorist attack, while the most hostile acts against football stadiums were in June 2014, when militant group Boko Haram attacked fans in a stadium in northeast Nigeria, causing 40 deaths.
Donbass stadium in Ukraine was also destroyed as a result of a massive explosion late 2014.
