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German watchdog warns World Cup venues unsafe
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-11 06:16
BERLIN (AFP) - German consumer protection watchdog Stiftung Warentest has
warned of "serious deficiencies" in security at four of the 12 stadiums to be
used during the football World Cup finals starting in June.
The Olympic stadium in Berlin is seen in this
October 1, 2005 file picture. Germany's World Cup stadiums have serious
safety problems just five months before the tournament begins as lessons
from past disasters seem to have been ignored.
[Reuters] | The independent group released a study
Tuesday showing that the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Veltins Arena in the
western city of Gelsenkirchen and Leipzig's Zentralstadion in eastern Germany
were ill-equipped to cope with a stampede.
The study, presented at a news conference by one of its authors, Hubertus
Primus, found that there was no plan to allow fans to enter the pitch in case of
a mass panic.
"When there is a panic, the crowd keeps moving without thinking," Primus
said.
The group identified a fourth stadium -- Fritz Walter in the southwestern
city of Kaiserslautern -- that had serious faults in terms of fire protection.
The study, which was undertaken last September and October, found that
two-thirds of the venues to be used during the World Cup failed to comply with
security guidelines established by the international soccer body FIFA.
The study, some aspects of which were leaked in advance, sparked an angry
reaction from the president of the World Cup's organizing committee, Franz
Beckenbauer.
"Stiftung Warentest may know about face lotions, olive oils and vacuums.
That's what they should stick with," he told the mass-circulation daily Bild.
The World Cup will kick off June 9 in the southern city of Munich, with the
final match scheduled for July 9 in Berlin.
Beckenbauer slams report stadiums not safe
BERLIN: Franz Beckenbauer criticized a respected German consumer products
group for saying there were serious deficiencies at World Cup stadiums and said
in an interview published on Tuesday they should stick to face creams.
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