Soccer’s worst disasters: Same mistakes by police, fans die

By GERALD IMRAY
AP Sports Writer

Police firing tear gas into a crowd of soccer fans. Exits locked against all safety regulations. It leads to a crush where people are trampled to death or suffocate. Soccer’s three worst stadium tragedies occurred over a 60-year span but are so strikingly similar that its clear lessons haven’t been learned. A crush at a soccer game in Indonesia last weekend killed 131 people and is now the second-worst soccer stadium disaster in history. Soccer stands almost helpless because police are responsible for security at games and experts say they are making the same fatal mistakes.