Abstract
Taylor and Francis Ltd fs s5207.sgm 10.1080/1466097042000235236 Socce Society 466970 (p int)/1743-9590 (online) Original Article 2 04 & Francis Ltd 50 00 Summer 2 04 PeterAlegi 21 Lancaste AvenueRichmondKY 40475USA al gi@y ho . om On Wednesday 11 April 2001, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates took the field at Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, for a derby with the league championship at stake. As the 8 p.m. kick-off time approached, the 62,000-seat stadium was bursting at the seams with more than 80,000 fans squeezed into every seat, aisle, and access way. Outside the arena, thousands of fans pressed to get inside to watch the country’s two most popular clubs. A portion of this massive crowd in the north-eastern corner of Ellis Park surged forward. A suffocating crush ensued. Veli Mpungose, his nine-year-old daughter Londiwe and 13-year-old son Siphiwe were trapped at the top of a steep stairway. ‘I felt something push us away. We were scared. We thought the stadium had collapsed’, Mpungose said. ‘I was trying to rescue Londiwe and when I reached for Siphiwe, there were ... big guys lying on top of him. I felt his pulse and I couldn’t feel anything. He was dead already.’ Media images captured the heartbreaking scene of Mpungose and Londiwe kneeling in tearful prayer over Siphiwe’s limp, lifeless body on the pitch. In the end, 43 people died and 158 were injured in South Africa’s worst-ever sport disaster. Drawing on interviews, government documents, newspapers, video footage and a visit to Ellis Park in August 2003, this study analyses the causes, consequences and legacy of the tragedy. This analysis of the disaster reveals that conditions beyond the control of fans were primarily to blame for transforming Ellis Park into a landscape of death and destruction. These included fundamental organizational flaws, contempt for spectator safety, and incompetence and dereliction of duty on the part of security personnel. Under South African Football Association guidelines for high-risk matches, responsibility for spectator safety lay with the home side, Kaizer Chiefs, the Premier Soccer League (PSL), and, to a lesser extent, Ellis Park stadium management. A critical examination of the governmental commission of inquiry into the tragedy notes the limitations of the investigative process and questions the official interpretation of the events. While South African football’s main powerbrokers emerged unscathed
Published Version
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