Soccer: Fifa warns Africa over stadium disasters

Fifa have pointed the finger of blame for the latest African football stadium disaster directly at officials and match organisers on the continent.

And, in a warning which could have worrying ramifications for African hopes of staging the 2010 World Cup, Fifa president Sepp Blatter claimed "there is disturbing evidence to indicate" that the lessons of previous disasters "are apparently not being learnt everywhere".

A stampede at a packed game between two of Ghana's top teams in Accra killed at least 123 people, in the fourth - and deadliest - soccer tragedy to strike Africa in a month.

It was sparked when police fired tear gas on a group of rioting fans.

Elsewhere, 43 people were killed on April 11 at Johannesburg's Ellis Park stadium in South Africa when fans stampeded at a game between Kaiser Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

Another stampede on April 29 killed eight people in Lubumbashi, Congo and on May 6, fighting broke out among fans at a soccer match in Ivory Coast, killing one person and injuring 39.

Blatter reflected: "The stadium disasters at Johannesburg's Ellis Park some of weeks ago and now more recently again in Congo, Iran and Ghana brought chilling reminders of incidents in recent years, not least the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989.

"The parallels between these incidents were too striking to be ignored.

"While Hillsborough led ultimately to changes in stadium design and a trouble-free Euro 96 in England, and the Bastia tragedy of 1992 prompted tighter restrictions on temporary grandstands and a safe France 98, there is disturbing evidence to indicate that the lessons are apparently not being learnt everywhere.

"Building safe and modern stadiums - without death-trap fences - is one thing. Managing them properly is another. Such management presupposes honest practice and diligence on the part of those in positions of responsibility.

"Even the world's most finely conceived stadium will struggle to withstand the force of several thousand people allowed to force their way into a space designed for the comfort of a lesser number."

Blatter claims "basic directives" have not been adhered to, such as issuing the correct number of tickets in accordance with a stadium's capacity, stemming the flow of spectators into a stadium by setting up ticket control cordons and delaying kick-off until the overall security situation is under control.

"We can repeat these and other basic rules as often as we like, the truth is that they will ultimately be of only limited effect as long as they fail to be properly respected," Blatter warned.

"It is too easy - and wrong - to point to the fans as the cause of the trouble; their enthusiasm is a characteristic of football that we know and that makes the game what it is.

"We want fans to want to go to matches, and we want them to be able to do so in safety and in comfort.

"The onus is upon the people receiving these fans at the stadium. The level of individual responsibility cannot be set too high.

"Each tragedy teaches us a lesson. Not all of these lessons are new, however, but merely repeats of what should have been learnt already."

Blatter has sent a letter of condolence to the president of the Ghana Football Association.