Delays in unlocking the gates at an Indonesian soccer stadium after violence broke out at the end of a match contributed to a disaster in which at least 131 people died, the national soccer association said Tuesday.
The Football Association of Indonesia said it has permanently banned the chief executive and security coordinator of the team that hosted Saturday’s match, Arema FC, for failing to secure the field and promptly issue a command to unlock the gates.
“The doors should have been open, but were closed,” said Erwin Tobing, chief of the association’s discipline commission.
Because of a lack of workers, only a few people were ordered to open the gates, and they had not yet reached some doors when spectators began rushing to escape tear gas fired by police in an attempt to control fans who had entered the field, association spokesperson Ahmad Riyadh said.
He said all gates should be unlocked 10 minutes before the end of a match. But on Saturday, seven minutes after the referee blew the final whistle, several doors were still locked, contributing to the toll in one of the world’s deadliest sporting disasters.
Police, however, continued to insist Tuesday that the gates were open but were too narrow and could only accommodate two people at a time when hundreds were trying to escape.
According to recommendations by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation, exits at stadiums must be unlocked at all times during a game for safety purposes. Those rules don’t necessarily apply to domestic or national leagues but nevertheless are a safety standard, as is the recommendation against the use of tear gas as a crowd-control measure.
Photos from the Malang stadium showed four connecting door panels forming one gate. There were 14 gates in total.
A man takes a picture inside of gate 13 at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, Indonesia, on Oct. 4. Police said Tuesday that the gates at the soccer stadium where police fired tear gas and set off a deadly crush were too small and could only accommodate two at a time when hundreds were trying to escape.
Achmad Ibrahim/AP
Police said their investigation focused on video recordings from surveillance cameras at six of the 14 gates where most of the victims died.
“For those six gates, they were not closed but they were too small. They had a capacity for two people but there were hundreds coming out. There was a crush there,” police spokesperson Dedi Prasetyo told reporters. He added that the gates were the responsibility of the organizers.
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Most of the deaths occurred when riot police fired tear gas and caused fans to make a panicked, chaotic run for the exits. Police acted after some of the 42,000 Arema fans ran onto the pitch in anger after their team was defeated 3-2, its first loss at home against visiting Persebaya Surabaya in 23 years.
On Monday, police announced they had removed a police chief and nine elite officers, and 18 others were being investigated for responsibility in the firing of tear gas inside the stadium.
