The Assistant Commissioner of Police , Kwesi Ofori, has admitted that the Police Service has learnt a lot from the May 9 disaster which saw 126 fans losing their lives at the Accra Sports Stadium, 19 years ago.
The sad incident occurred after a Ghana Premier League game between Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko here in Accra.
Accra Hearts of Oak was leading 2-1 against Asante Kotoko with five minutes left in the game when Kotoko supporters began throwing bottles and chairs onto the field at the 45,000-capacity Accra Sports Stadium, witnesses said.
Police responded by firing tear gas, creating panic in the stands as spectators rushed to escape, but the main gate was locked, witnesses said.
The stadium disaster led to the formation of a Commission of Enquiry to investigate the happenings at the venue and also to make recommendations to ensure such incident are prevented in the future.
Speaking in an interview on Ghana’s number one Sports Station, Happy 98.9FM on how the Police has fared in crowd control and policing at the stadium since that incident, ACP Kwesi Ofori said, “The Ghana Police Service has learnt a lot from that incident 19 years ago.
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The Police was blamed for that incident and the Service has learnt a lot from it. So far the Police Service has policed a lot of matches at our various stadia without any incident, he told Ohene-Bampoe Brenya on Happy Sports.
“Following that we took a look at crowd control at the stadium which led to the creation of a Rapid Deployment Force. Now we deploy officers from this unit supported by other units for sports on how to manage crowd.
The Police now have adopted a lot of various strategies to help in policing well at the stadium, he noted.
He added that the Police Service has injected discipline, dynamism, professionalism and good policing in its work to ensure the safety of fans at the stadium.