Charlayne Hunter-Gault: Ghana soccer match tragedy

Hunter Gault

Charlayne Hunter-Gault is CNN's Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent.

Q: What is known so far about the cause of this incident in which 126 people were killed in a stampede at the end of a soccer match in Ghana?

Hunter-Gault: There isn't anything definitive out so far because the government announced that there would be a commission of inquiry, but one of the interesting things about this soccer tragedy is how it compares with other ones, particularly in Africa in the past year. In fact, the security and or the police used tear gas to attempt to disperse the crowd. While there was already a lot of activity, including fans on the losing side clashing with fans on the winning side and throwing seats on to the pitch in the stadium, many seem to think that the people's panic was caused as a result of the tear gas.

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In fact, there's one soccer expert, a commentator here in South Africa who has called for use of tear gas to be banned at these events, even in the event of some unruliness because that just seems to add insult to injury and people panicking. Many of those in Ghana as here in South Africa were suffocated or crushed under foot in the ensuing rush as people were attempting to escape both the trouble and the tear gas. In Ghana the gates were locked shut to this 40,000 seat capacity stadium, so that also made it quite difficult for people to get out of the way of the stampede.

Q: Are there certain stadium conditions that contributed to so many injuries and deaths?

Hunter-Gault: At least one commentator and highly respected journalist, a Ghanayan, who was on the scene did say that the commission of inquiry ought to look into the architecture of the sports stadium. He said that there were too many metal barricades, too many wires, too many barriers for people to get out and also, as I said, the gates at the entrance were in fact locked. I think that will be part of the inquiry. Here in South Africa's tragedy, which happened in April in which 43 people were killed and 155 injured, there was a huge scaffolding outside one of the gates. That might have been a factor in people's inability to get out and contributed to the crush because people didn't have anywhere to go or have any room to maneuver under those circumstances. That's a real possibility, that the architecture of the stadium, as well as the impediments to egress could easily be factors to these tragedies.

In most of these situations the stadiums are filled to capacity. Soccer is a passion with people in Africa and in Ghana the seats were apparently all taken. I wasn't there, but commentators say that it was packed to capacity if not overcapacity. People say (and this was actually testimony recently, interviews, by people who were at the South African stadium tragedy in April) that what often happens is that people walk up to the stadium and don't have tickets and the tickets are sold out, but if you pass a little money to a guard, you can get in. So there is an overcrowding that exacerbates the other problems that evolve.

Q: How will this incident and others recently affect Africa's chances of hosting the 2010 World Cup?

Hunter-Gault: Soccer officials here seem to think that it shouldn't affect their chances because it is, after all, nine years away. Most people seem to think that if something dramatic isn't done to right some of the problems in some of these stadiums, and if these kinds of tragedies continue to happen, they will probably doom some of those chances. There have been soccer matches here in South Africa where there have been huge crowds of people, but they were in different venues and they've come off uneventfully, at least in terms of this kind of tragedy. So the argument could be made that under the proper circumstances and with the proper organization and management, these kinds of incidents could be avoided.

One commentator was saying this morning that some people might raise a question about whether or not countries in Africa with limited resources for such construction could really afford to make the changes necessary to prevent these kinds of deaths. And this well-known soccer analyst and veteran watcher of the game was saying it wouldn't take a lot of resources to re-organize the approach to soccer matches and to establish guidelines similar to the ones adopted in Europe. For example, in South Africa, for the rugby matches, no tickets are sold at the stadium and they monitor very carefully to allow only people with tickets to come in. They have ample security. They have assigned, numbered seats. So there is a school of thought among some veteran observers of the game that just some very elementary changes in the way the thing is organized could go a long way towards limiting any kind of damage that might arise as a result of overexuberance and even unruly fans.

Memorial held for stadium victims
April 15, 2001

Ghana Football Association
Accra Hearts of Oak
Assante Kotoko

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