Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced on Tuesday that a football stadium that killed more than 130 people in a stampede earlier this month would be demolished and rebuilt.
“As for the Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, we will demolish and reconstruct it in accordance with FIFA standards with appropriate facilities to ensure the safety of players and fans,” Widodo told reporters after meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Indonesia announced two weeks ago that about 130 people had died in riots following a football match between two local clubs in East Java.
The Indonesian authorities made a mistake and announced that the death toll had risen to 174 dead and more than 180 injured. Regarding the interpretation of the error that occurred in the numbers, Dardak said: “Some of the names were registered twice because they were transferred to another hospital and therefore were rewritten.”
However, what happened on the pitch remains one of the worst violent incidents in football history. The match was played between Persibaya Surabaya and Arima FC at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in the Malang city derby in East Java, Indonesia. The match ended in a 3-2 defeat for Arima, the first time in over 20 years that the team had lost to their traditional rival. After the end of the match, the fans of the losing team burst onto the field, expressing dissatisfaction with the result. According to police in East Java, where the tragedy occurred, security forces acted quickly, using gas bombs and batons to disperse the intruders, causing a stampede and cases of suffocation.
