IVORY COAST: FOOTBALL/SOCCER: FIFA order investigation into Abidjan stadium deaths

Record ID: 181617

  • Title: IVORY COAST: FOOTBALL/SOCCER: FIFA order investigation into Abidjan stadium deaths
  • Date: 31st March 2009
  • Summary: STREET WITH TRAFFIC
  • Embargoed: 15th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVACHJBBH6NROSYJFQ0ADKM8BX0
  • Story Text: Emotion was high outside the Abidjan mortuary on Monday (March 30) as families of victims gathered to identify bodies of relatives killed in the Houphouet Boigny stadium crush on Sunday.
    "My son's dead because of a soccer ball," said a woman as she cried over her lost son who died in the crush.
    FIFA have ordered an investigation into the stadium crush in Abidjan in which at least 19 people were killed and a further 132 injured before a World Cup qualifier between Ivory Coast and Malawi on Sunday.
    "We don't really know what happened, or under which circumstances he fell down. We've been told he fell and was trampled but is that what happened? The police started to push back the crowd and fired teargas and people were jumping over the fence," said Alvares Kpanhe, a friend of a victim.
    A brief statement on Monday from world soccer's governing body said FIFA had requested a full report from the Ivorian Football Federation and local authorities to "establish the sequence of events that happened outside the stadium before the match".
    The Ivory Coast government on Monday said it was holding a crisis meeting to determine responsibility for the deaths.
    "The police did not do their job. My brother is dead for no reason," said Toure Sinanni who lost his brother in the crush.
    The crush occurred after part of a wall collapsed when ticketless fans stormed one of the entrances to the 45,000-capacity Houphouet-Boigny arena and people in Abidjan are pointing the lack of organisation from the Ivorian football federation .
    "The federation must take measures to avoid ticket overselling.
    This is the root of the problem because at a moment even all those who had tickets could not make it into the stadium," said a friend of one of the victims.
    Despite a bid by FIFA to force the improvement of stadium facilities across the continent, the crush in Abidjan is the second such incident during the 2010 qualifiers in Africa.
    In June, eight people were killed in a crush in Liberia as spectators jostled to get into an already overcrowded stadium in Monrovia for the match between Liberia and the Gambia.
    A FIFA audit in August 2007 found just 18 African nations had soccer stadiums safe enough to allow World Cup qualifiers to be hosted, following inspection of facilities across 50 countries.
    Strict criteria introduced to ensure dangerous facilities were upgraded and FIFA also threatened that countries without proper stadium facilities would forfeit home advantage during the 2010 World Cup preliminaries.
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