Football Disasters in History That Shook the Sport

Often referred to as the most watched sport in the world, football is played and watched by billions of people from around the globe. It is a game which brings different cultures and fans together and even enemies get along while playing or cheering for their favourite team. Such is the beauty of this game but unfortunately every good has some bad and so does football. This game has sometimes been harsh on the fans and caused thousands of casualties. Be it a stadium disaster because of it being old or a football disaster due to hooliganism being the consequence of some deficient or scantily prepared security measures it has always been the fans inside the stadium who had to suffer. The following are the 5 worst football disasters which have taken place in the history of the sport.

Worst Football Disasters

5) The Guatemala disaster

Venue: Estadio Mateo Flores, Guatemala.

Date: 16 October, 1996.

Death toll: 84

The spectators were in the stadium for a World Cup qualifier between Guatemala and Costa Rica. According to the reports the arena was already filled with an audience exceeding its capacity of 45000 people and due to this reason it resulted into a stampede and people died because of asphyxiation. 84 people died and around 147 people were injured due to the stampede and the entire stadium was in complete disarray.

According to FIFA, the rout took place because ticket forgery created an inundation of people trying to get inside the stadium. Contrary to that, a Guatemala talking head claimed that a brawl had taken place inside the stadium and people trying to escape it resulted in the stampede. Regardless of what the cause was, it was one of the worst football disasters.

4) The Kathmandu Disaster

Venue: National Stadium, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Date: 12 March 1988.

Death Toll: 93.

Thirty thousand fans were watching a football match between Nepal and Bangladesh and all of a sudden a hailstorm prompted fans inside the stadium to run away from the stadium. When the fans started running towards the exit doors, they found out that only one out of eight was open which resulted in huge chaos and a stampede. Around 93 fans died and more than a 100 people got injured in an attempt to save themselves from the hailstorm pelting on them. It was one of the most horrific football disasters

3) The Hillsborough Disaster.

Venue: Hillsborough stadium, Sheffield, England

Date: 15 April 1989.

Death Toll: 96.

It was an FA Cup semi-final match that was going to be played between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium which was selected as a neutral venue. The official inquiry report concluded that the disaster took place because of “police failure in crowd control”. The mass chaos and inundation of people took place in the Leepings Lane stand which was allotted to the Liverpool supporters during the match. There was a huge gathering of people outside the turnstile entrances and the ones who had been refused from entering inside could not leave the place because there was a huge crowd behind them waiting to get in and as a result of that the police decided to open some exit gates in a bid to lessen the crowd. But instead, people surged towards the stand. The crowd was so tight inside the pen that many people died due to suffocation.

96 people died and around 766 people were injured. It is considered as the worst football disasters in England.

2) The Ghana Disaster

Venue:  Ohene Djan stadium, Accra, Ghana

Date: 9 may 2001

Death Toll: 126

The disaster took place during a match between the two most elite football clubs of the country, Accra Hearts and Asante Kotoko. The home team Accra Hearts scored two late goals and were leading 2-1. This provoked the away supporters and in frustration they started throwing bottles and plastic seats onto the pitch. Unfortunately the police responded quite frantically to this situation and fired tear gas. This resulted in huge panic amongst the crowd and a stampede followed by asphyxia was the ultimate consequence of it.

126 people died and scores of fans were injured. It goes down as the worst stadium disaster Africa has ever witnessed.

1) The National Stadium Disaster

Venue: National Stadium, Lima, Peru

Date: 24 May 1964

Death Toll: 318

The match was played between Peru and Argentina and the away team was leading 1-0, the home team (Peru) scored in stoppage time and the goal was disallowed by the referee. This aroused ire among the home fans and it resulted into a pitch invasion. The police fired tear gas into the northern grandstand to thwart the fans from further invasion. Panicked fans started rushing out of the stadium and the overcrowded exits resulted into asphyxia.

318 people died and more than 500 were injured. This disaster is considered to be the worst disaster in the history of world football.