by Matt Ford at DW News
The Indonesian topflight fixture between Arema Malang and Persebaya Surabaya ended in chaos and tragedy on Saturday night. Indiscriminate police used tear gas in response to a pitch invasion which resulted in mass panic, stampedes, crushes and a provisional 125 fatalities (as of Sunday local time).
The current death toll makes it the most-deadly stadium tragedy in Indonesian football, and the third-most deadly such event in the sport anywhere in the world, narrowly following the Accra Sport Stadium disaster in Ghana in 2001 (126 deaths). Only the Estadio Nacional disaster in Lima, Peru, in 1964 (328 deaths) resulted in a greater loss of life.
Indonesia’s Liga 1 has been temporarily suspended and home club Arema have been banned from hosting games for the rest of the season, while the Indonesian football association (PSSI) launches an investigation.
For those familiar with Indonesian football, fan culture and stadium policing, however, the tragedy at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in East Java has sadly come as no surprise.
“Terrible organization, terrible facilities, terrible policing and a culture of violence within certain sections of the fan culture — it was a disaster waiting to happen,” says James Montague, a British expert on global fan culture who spent time traveling with Indonesian football fans while researching his 2020 book “1312: Among the Ultras.”
Andrin Brändle, a Swiss author who spent a summer accompanying…
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