Stadia safety still wanting four years after loss of lives

Exactly four years after a deadly stampede rocked Nyayo National Stadium in which eight lives were lost and several fans injured during a football match between Kenya’s oldest rivals Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards, nothing of much substance seems to have been done to improve safety and avoid future recurrence of the same in Kenyan stadia.

Crowds pushed and shoved to gain entry into the already sold-out Nyayo National Stadium just moments after kick-off. What was to be the most enjoyable match turned into grief as eight youthful lives were lost and several injuries sustained in the aftermath.

What followed was a series of blame games that ended with nobody taking responsibility for the deadly evening. However, KPL spent large sums of money to sanction an audit on Kenya football stadia safety and security – a survey that was conducted by Group 4 Security and a report - complete with recommendations - released.

Among the recommendations in the report was that ticket sales be done away from the match venue and not on match days. G4S saw that ticket sales on match days and at the match venues often led to congestion in the stadia and were a potential hazard. But to this date none of that has been done as tickets are still being sold on match days and right in the stadium.

“It is difficult to implement that,” says Gor Mahia Assistant Secretary General Ronald Ngala. “The moment we print advance tickets, some mischievous people find ways to duplicate them. Given tickets are our only source of revenue as a club, we have to guard them jealously against counterfeiters.”

But pressed on the recommendation to sell tickets away from the match venues, Ngala says it can be looked into. “But to us the main cause of congestion is at entry points. Whether we sell tickets miles away what will matter is the number of gates opened for access.”

To monitor spectators coming into the stadium, the G4S report further recommended installation of CCTV cameras all round. Nothing close to that has ever happened while the one on the stadia being all-seated seems utopian in this side of the world.

Nyayo Stadium, for instance, was banned from hosting all football matches soon after the 2010 stampede and closed presumably for installation of security equipment in line with the G4S report. Not shocking that when it was reopened, only white and blue demarcation lines had been drawn on the concrete around it. Football Kenya Federation President Sam Nyamweya sadly sums it up thus: “We are only lucky nothing of that sort has happened. Otherwise we are all alive to the fact that our safety and security in the stadium is wanting.”