Honoring Lives Lost: Accra Ghana Stadium Stampede

On May ninth, two thousand and one, in a soccer match featuring two of Ghana's best teams at Akura Stadium, a riot was incited, causing one hundred and twenty six people to lose their lives, all due to issues with the stadium and how police handled the matter. Today, we're going to dive into this tragic event and hope it never happens again today on Daily Sports History. All right, before we hit the field on today's episode, let's huddle up and talk about sports social pro If you manage your team's sports social media and feel like it's coaching a team of cats, we got the per fixed solution. Whether you need a playbook for DIY success or you want us to handle all your social media and make it into m beats, head over to Daily's History Slash. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. So first we're going to dive into what led up to this match. It was a match versus the Akara Heart of Oak versus the Kumaseku, two of the best teams in the Ghana Premier League, which started in nineteen fifty seven, which replaced the gold Coastal Cup competition and is organized by the Ghana Football Association, which at the time was ranked the eleventh best league in Africa in the sixty seventh best league in the world. But that didn't mean that these teams didn't have a huge following in Ghana now. The Heart of Oaks actually started way back in nineteen eleven when the Governor of the Golden Coast put together a team to compete in the Kura Football League, and in nineteen fifty six they finally joined the Ghana Premier League where they have been ever since, and in two thousand they had actually won the Ghana FA Cup, the Ghana Premier League and for the first time in history, the CAF Champion League, which helped them make the FIFA World Cup. Now the Issanti Gothut team started has a rich history as well, as they started in nineteen twenty six when they originally named the Krissy Titanics, although they bounced around from the team name to team name, they eventually settled nineteen thirty five on Isanti Gout, which means porcupine and is their official mascot and is on their logo as it has an arsenal of sharp spikes to attack the enemy, and leading up to the game, these teams were number one and number two in the Ghana Premier League and this game would weigh heavily on who would win the league, and over thirty thousand spectators were in attendance on May night, two thousand and one. Asanti had the league through most of the match until late in the game when Okura scored two late goals giving them a two to one advantage, and after this, the Kutuko team was very upset and started to throw bottles onto the pitch and eventually continued their dissatisfaction, ripping the actual chairs they were sitting on out of the ground and throwing them onto the pitch as well. In response to this, they called the game, ending it for a win for Kura two to one, but the Kotuku fans would not let go. They continued their rampage, throwing everything they could find onto the field, and the police there started to fire tear grass and rubber bullets into the crowd, which caused a panic and caused everyone in the stands to start to run. But the problem was the stadium had not opened their gates yet as they had just called the match, and they normally closed the gates to not allow anyone to come into the game that had not paid, and they would open them as the game ended, but it ended so abruptly they had not opened the gates yet, which caused fans to get stuck at the gates and the fans behind them to push, and they kept pushing and pushing, causing a bottleneck and many were getting injured and collapse on the ground, causing many to be trampled or have issues breathing and causing a lot of trauma. For one hundred and sixteen people that passed away during this tragic moment, their cause of death was compressive exficia, which means that their lungs were compressed on the torso preventing them from breathing, basically crushing their airways so they could not breathe, and sadly, this included men, women, and children. Ten more fans died of trauma from being trampled, and many more were injured. Another issue that caused this was there were so many people that were injured that the nearby hospitals could not keep up and could not provide medical attention to many of the spectators that needed its were even put into the morgue and later woke up just narrowly missing being buried alive. Following this event, Ghana President John Fuhr called for three days of morning and the Ghana Premier League suspended a month of play and officials were looking into the event to see why it happened and what they could do to prevent this moment, and they actually brought charges against the police that were there for over one hundred accounts of manslaughter as they were thought to have used too much force that caused one hundred and twenty six people to lose their lives. Because this wasn't the first time this happened, and back in nineteen sixty four when Peru was playing Argentina in a soccer match in Argentina and for a chance to make it to the Olympics, fans again started to incite riot like activities and the police there shot tear gas and caused fans to panic, and this one led to three one hundred and twenty eight deaths due to the same issues of gates being closed and bottlenecks causing people to be crushed and not be able to breathe. So there was precedent of this happening, and they should have known how to handle it better, because if they wouldn't have reacted the way they did, chances are we wouldn't have lost that many people. But they were not convicted of these crimes, despite the committee that looked into the events saying they acted incorrectly. They said the moment was one that someone could not prepare for and their actions were not the only reason for the cost. Despite many families and victims, including one hundred and forty eight children that were left without parents, still calling for justice, they continue to live without it. They now do a Remember a Walk every May Ninth and hold a May Ninth Cup to celebrate the lives of those they lost, and during the May Ninth Cup, the fans in attendant continuously shout never again, never again, never again. As we may love our teams and we may not like our rivals, but in no way should anyone lose their life for the games they love. So always remember that when you meet a rival fan, that they have a life just like you that's worth living and sports are for enjoyment and we should never have these tragedies ever again. And If you have another great topic for us to cover on Daily Sports History, please send us an email at the email address Dailyesports History at gmail dot com. We'd love to hear from you in the great moments that you love. In the great moments that you love, and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.