FIFA refuses blame for Johannesburg stadium stampede
FIFA has said it was not responsible for the recent stampede outside a stadium in Johannesburg that left 16 fans injured. The Nigerian FA claims that it had been left with nowhere else to play largely due to reasons made by the world governing body. The incident, less than a week before the opening match of the World Cup, occurred when free tickets for a warm-up match between Nigeria and North Korea were distributed outside the 10,000 capacity Makhulong Stadium in the Johannesburg district of Tembisa.
The Nigerian FA said that the match was played at the venue only because FIFA had "taken control" of all other alternatives. Taiwo Ogunjobi, the Nigerian federation's technical committee chairman, said that they had no choice. That was the only venue available to them and that FIFA had taken control of all the stadiums they could have used and so they had to settle for that one because they needed to play the match.
However, FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, and General Secretary, Jérôme Valcke, blamed poor organization on the day and said responsibility for organizing warm-up matches lay with national associations. Valcke said the rule that teams could not use World Cup stadiums for warm-up matches did not prevent them from using others throughout the country, pointing to the 40,000‑capacity Orlando Stadium in Soweto as an example. General Secretary Valcke rejected the suggestion that FIFA should take a more hands-on role in organizing friend-lies in the host country in the immediate run-up to a World Cup. He said that the teams have a preparation period for the World Cup, and it is their duty to organize the number of games they need to have.
The FIFA President appeared to indirectly blame the South African authorities for the incident when he said that the security has always been the matter of the state where the sports event is played. He went on to say that football has to take adequate steps to ensure the minimum standard of security for any competition and that it is cooperation, and the responsibility of the local authorities, police or military.
Valcke urged fans to arrive early for the opening match between South Africa and Mexico at Soccer City on Friday to avoid a last minute rush and congestion on the roads around the newly built stadium. Entertainment is scheduled to be provided on big screens from 10 a.m. in an effort to encourage fans to arrive early. Before the tournament's opening ceremony FIFA's 208 member associations will attend its Congress in Sandton, Johannesburg; a district that has been effectively taken over by the world governing body for the World Cup.
All nine countries bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will present their cases to the 24 members of the FIFA executive committee that will decide their fate in December. At the event the English bid team will get a sense of how successful their damage-limitation effort has been in the wake of the controversial resignation of Lord Triesman, the bid chairman. Valcke said that the file had been closed on the events that forced Triesman to step down after he was secretly taped making bribery allegations about two rival bidders, Russia and Spain. It is believed that some members of the executive committee argued for the investigation to be reopened when they were asked to sign off the recent report from FIFA's ethics committee, which found the FA had no further case to answer.
However, Blatter said the executive committee accepted there was no basis for re-opening the case, especially as Lord Triesman had now resigned from all football-related positions. Valcke also claimed that the tournament would be "between 97% and 98%" sold out, despite long running concerns about ticket sales. However, he admitted that the decision to put 38,000 unsold hospitality tickets on the open market in the last few days as "premium" tickets reflected seriously reduced demand for corporate tickets.
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