International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)
Subterms
More stories
- in Soccer
Death Is Rare at Soccer Games, but Aggressive Policing Can Light a Match
This is not the first time this year that the sport has had to confront the reality that tragedies often result from failures of policing, security and crowd management.The tear gas still hung thick in the air at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, Indonesia, as law enforcement reached into a playbook that is grimly familiar across the world.Officers had been given no choice but to fire the chemical into the crowd, the police chief for the province of East Java, Nico Afinta, said, “because there was anarchy.” The nightmarish scale of the disaster was not yet clear. Yet the police, the chief said, had to act. “They were about to attack the officers and had damaged the cars,” he said.The accusation that fans were to blame for another soccer tragedy was immediately recognizable from the tragedy at the Olembé Stadium in Cameroon — where eight people died in January during the Africa Cup of Nations — and the near miss in May at the Champions League final, European soccer’s showpiece game, in Paris.Those two incidents happened this year, but the trope dates back further: for example, to Port Said, Egypt, where 74 fans were killed in 2012; to Sheffield, England, where 97 Liverpool supporters went to a soccer game at Hillsborough Stadium and never came home in 1989.These are rare incidents, given the global scale of the sport, but they are bound by a common thread: When tragedies occur in soccer, they tend not to be the result of fan violence, but of an overzealous and, at times, aggressive style of policing that treats a large crowd as a threat and turns a game into a hazard.“It speaks to a mind-set that is too often too oriented toward public order, rather than public safety,” said Owen West, a senior lecturer in policing at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England. “You can see officers in full riot gear, crowd control munitions. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”He said law enforcement agencies assumed a need to “control” the crowd, and therefore tended to be “overzealous and over-resourced.” “Too often, it is actually the police action that triggers the adverse reaction in the crowds,” he said.The disaster Saturday in Malang carried an echo of the tragedy in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, in January, when eight people were killed in a crush before an Africa Cup of Nations game between Cameroon and the Comoros.Then, the police had greeted the sight of thousands of fans trying to get into the Olembé Stadium by directing them to enter through a gate that was “closed for inexplicable reasons,” as Patrice Motsepe, the president of African soccer’s governing body, said. “If that gate was open, as it was supposed to be, we would not have had this loss of life,” he said.At Port Said, too, fans had found themselves with nowhere to run. That day, when supporters of the Egyptian team Al Masry attacked fans of rival Al Ahly after a game in the country’s Premier League, thousands more in the crowd tried to escape the violence. The doors to the stadium, though, had been locked, and were not opened to relieve the pressure. Seventy-four fans were killed.The use of tear gas, though, was most redolent of the chaotic scenes in Paris outside this year’s Champions League final, contested by Real Madrid and Liverpool.UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, had two of its previous showpiece games marred by a failure to manage an entirely anticipated crowd. First, at the final of the delayed 2020 European Championship, held at Wembley Stadium in London in July 2021, thousands of fans broke through security barriers to gain entry.Then, after this year’s Europa League final between Eintracht Frankfurt and the Scottish team Rangers in Seville, Spain, both clubs took the unusual step of issuing a joint letter of complaint to UEFA about the way their fans were treated.Paris, though, was the most worrisome of all. French authorities funneled tens of thousands of Liverpool fans through narrow passageways, causing bottlenecks at the entrance to the stadium. Many in the crowd waited for hours at gates that either opened only a few minutes before the game was scheduled to start or did not open at all.As they waited, French security officers fired tear gas into tightly packed crowds.An officer spraying tear gas at Liverpool fans before the Champions League final in France in May.Matthias Hangst/Getty ImagesUEFA initially advised those fans already in the stadium, as well as viewers watching at home, that the game would be delayed because of the “late arrival” of so many supporters, despite knowing at the time that many of the fans trapped outside had arrived hours before the scheduled start time.That trope was seized upon by the French authorities, who in the days afterward tried to blame tens of thousands of fans bearing forged tickets for the problems. The number of fake tickets, however, was grossly overstated and a French Senate inquiry in July faulted the authorities for what it called a “fiasco” at the final, determining that poor coordination, bad planning and multiple errors, including the use of tear gas on fans, had caused the chaos.Five months later, their counterparts in Indonesia directed responsibility away from themselves in the same way in their initial statements. They centered blame for the deaths of at least 125 fans on those supporters who had encroached the field of play at Kanjuruhan Stadium after an Indonesian league game between Arema and Persebaya Surabaya, rather than on the officers who had sought to deal with that offense by firing tear gas into an area where there was no easy escape from it.“It is incredibly dangerous to use a dispersal tactic such as tear gas in this case,” said West, the policing expert. “Chiefly in the minds of officers thinking about that tactic should be where people are expected to disperse to. Some of the reporting talks about panic, which suggests an irrationality on the part of the crowd. But running away from something that is doing so much damage to your breathing, eyesight and general health is an entirely rational decision.”According to the stadium safety and security regulations published by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, “crowd control gas” should not be “carried or used” by stewards or police officers positioned on the side of the field inside a stadium. FIFA, though, admitted Sunday that those principles can only be guidelines at domestic competitions subject to national safety and security regulations.In a statement Sunday, Indonesia’s Legal Aid Foundation condemned “the excessive use of force through the use of tear gas,” and blamed it for the large number of fatalities in Malang, an assertion supported by eyewitnesses. “The tear gas was overdone,” said Suci Rahayu, a photographer who was in the stadium. “Many people fainted. If there wasn’t tear gas, there wouldn’t be such a riot.”Austin Ramzy More
- in Soccer
Fans Focus on Police After More Than 100 Die at Indonesian Soccer Match
Witnesses said officers fired tear gas indiscriminately into the stands, causing a stampede that led to at least 125 deaths.MALANG, Indonesia — It was supposed to be a joyous occasion for fans of Arema F.C., the most beloved soccer team in the city of Malang, Indonesia.Tens of thousands of young people — who call themselves “Aremania” — had packed the Kanjuruhan Stadium on Saturday night, hoping to watch their team beat Persebaya Surabaya, a club it had defeated for 23 years running.But Arema lost, 3-2, and angry fans began rushing the field. What unfolded next became one of the deadliest sports stadium disasters in history: Police officers began shooting tear gas canisters into the crowd and beating fans with batons, witnesses said, and in a rush to flee the stadium fans piled up against narrow exits, crushing each other. At least 125 people were reported dead as of Sunday night.“I’m still thinking: ‘Did all this really happen?’” said Felix Mustikasakti Afoan Tumbaz, a 23-year-old fan whose right leg was injured when a tear-gas canister landed on him. “How could such a tragedy occur and kill so many people?”The disaster has focused attention on the use of tear gas by the local police in such a tightly packed stadium. On Twitter, one of the top trending topics in Indonesia was “National Police Chief,” with many Indonesians calling for his removal. A spokesman for the national police said that in addition to the huge death toll, there were reports that at least 300 people had been injured.Police officers fired tear gas during a soccer match at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, East Java, Indonesia, on Saturday.Yudha Prabowo/Associated PressViolent, often deadly rivalries between major teams are common in Indonesia. Some teams even have fan clubs with so-called commanders, who lead large groups of supporters. Flares are often thrown onto the field, and riot police are a regular presence at many matches. Since the 1990s, dozens of fans have been killed in soccer-related violence.But Indonesia has never before seen a sports stadium disaster on this scale. Saturday’s tragedy appeared to be a perfect storm of everything that could go wrong at a soccer match.Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has asked the police chief for a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident. In a televised speech to the nation, he said he had also ordered the minister of youth and sports and the chairman of Indonesia’s football association to evaluate security at soccer matches.“I regret that this tragedy occurred,” Mr. Joko said. “And I hope this is the last football tragedy in the country.”The police defended their use of tear gas, which they said was necessary to subdue aggrieved fans. East Java’s police chief, Inspector General Nico Afinta, said the gas was deployed “because there was anarchy.” He said the fans “were about to attack the officers and had damaged the cars.”But witnesses dispute Mr. Afinta’s account, saying that police officers fired tear gas indiscriminately into the stands, causing a stampede and many people to suffocate. Videos circulating on Twitter showed fans scaling a fence as they tried to flee the clouds of tear gas. Other videos showed security forces with shields and batons kicking and hitting fans who had rushed onto the field.Officers with a damaged police vehicle after the deadly events at Kanjuruhan Stadium on Saturday.Yudha Prabowo/Associated PressThe stadium was over capacity. Mahfud MD, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, said that the local football committee had printed 42,000 tickets, more than the stadium’s 38,000 seats. Mr. Afinto, the East Java police chief, said there were 40,000 people inside the stadium.The police came armed with tear gas, even though its use at games is prohibited by FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. Owen West, a senior lecturer on policing at the Edge Hill University in Britain, said the use of crowd control munitions and full riot gear “becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy” because officers’ “tactical assumptions are all initiated around a sense of losing control.”“It is incredibly, incredibly dangerous to use a dispersal tactic such as tear gas in this case,” said Mr. West. “I’m guessing it was used without any thought of where thousands of people might go to.”One fan, Joshua Nade, said that after the match ended, two or three angry fans came down from the stands and were seen shouting at the players. Police officers entered to turn the fans back, drawing more people onto the field. Some scuffling between the police and fans prompted officers to fire the first bursts of tear gas around 10:30 p.m. local time.Then at 11 p.m., the security forces suddenly started firing tear gas at a steady clip into the stands, said Mr. Joshua, who like many Javanese does not use a family name. That prompted hundreds of people to rush to the exits. Officers continued firing tear gas for an hour, according to Mr. Joshua.Soccer fans carrying an injured man away from the stadium.Yudha Prabowo/Associated PressOutside the stadium, hundreds of angry fans clashed with the police. Some of the exits were sealed off, ostensibly to keep fans from flooding the stadium. But that trapped thousands of people inside.To get out, Mr. Joshua said, some people had to scale fences more than 15 feet high, clambering over other panicked spectators. Mr. Joshua said the police stood by and did nothing to help the hundreds of people who had fainted from the tear gas.In a statement, Indonesia’s Legal Aid Foundation said “the excessive use of force through the use of tear gas and inappropriate crowd control was the cause of the large number of fatalities.”“If there wasn’t tear gas, there wouldn’t be such a riot,” said Suci Rahayu, a photographer who was in the stadium.Soccer violence has long been a problem for Indonesia, and police officers are usually on guard to contend with unruly fans. The last time tear gas was used in a deadly way by the police during a soccer match was also during an Arema F.C. game in 2018. One person died and 214 people were injured.A relative of a victim sitting outside a hospital in Malang, East Java, on Sunday.Juni Kriswanto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSaturday’s death toll put it among the worst sports casualty counts in history, including a riot in Peru in 1964 that left more than 300 dead, and in Hillsborough, England, in which an F.A. Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield resulted in the deaths of 97 soccer fans.Mr. Tumbaz said around 11:45 p.m., a tear-gas canister landed on his right leg, burning his calf and foot. He showed photographs of his injuries to The New York Times.When the firing stopped, he said he helped medical workers carry to the exits more than 10 people who had fainted. He checked to see if they were still alive, and their heartbeats were faint but still present. Then he went to look for his friends in the parking lot.When he returned, the bodies of the unconscious people had turned dark.“I still remember all their faces,” said Mr. Tumbaz. “I hear them asking for help in my head.”In Malang on Sunday night, hundreds of Arema fans held a vigil for the dead. They wore black at Stadium Gajayana, where Arema won its first title. Many of them sang hymns to remember those who had died.The survivors say they are still traumatized.Arema football club supporters prayed during a vigil outside the Kanjuruhan Stadium Sunday night.Willy Kurniawan/ReutersBambang Siswanto, the father of 19-year-old Gilang Putra Yuliazah, said his son and his nephew had gone to the game with three other boys. His 17-year-old nephew did not make it out alive and his son, he said, is already struggling with survivor’s guilt.“He totally went into shock,” said Mr. Bambang, speaking at a hospital in Malang, where his son was admitted. “He looked OK when I found him, but as soon as he saw his cousin’s body, that’s when it hit him. He went blank. You talk to him and there’s no response.”Gilang’s mother, Etri, who goes by one name, said she had told her son not to go to the match. But her son is a die-hard Arema fan and has loved soccer since he was little.“I will never let him watch a soccer match anymore,” Etri said. “I am terrified.”Mr. Bambang echoed his wife’s sentiments. “Yes, we won’t allow him to go to a soccer match,” he said. “Too cruel. The police are too cruel.”Muktita Suhartono More
