Yesterday’s bloody soccer riots in the Egyptian city of Port Said left at least 73 people dead, and top members of the new Egyptian parliament blame the military junta for escalating the violence.
Protesters, many of them soccer fans, are now taking to the streets of Egypt, condemning the junta. And while there are certainly plenty of reasons to condemn Egypt’s junta at any given moment, it isn’t clear that a soccer riot is one of them.
Indeed, soccer riots are a relatively common occurrence, and while 73 is a high death toll, it struggles to make it into the top ten deadliest soccer riots of the past fifty years. It almost seems tame in comparison to the riot at a Peruvian match in 1964, spurred by a referee’s blown call, which took 318 lives, or the October 1982 riot at Moscow’s Lenin Stadium, caused when a late goal convinced people who were leaving the game early to rush back to their seats.
In fact, this isn’t even the deadliest soccer riot in Africa in recent years. In 2001, police in Accra, Ghana, started a riot at a rivalry game, firing tear gas into the stands, resulting in the deaths of 120 fans who tried to leave the stadium. The death toll inspired a national day of mourning.