Copa America legal cases maybe just could change world football

What are the three things we know about major football tournaments?

Actually that is a simple question to answer.  The tournament organisers will claim the event has been a great success, the media will plough vast amounts of money into supporting the event, and large numbers of migrant workers will die building everything from stadia to hotels.

But now maybe there is a fourth thing we know as well – having ploughed a vast amount of money into covering the event, the media will do all it can to ensure that the utterly unnecessary deaths will only be mentioned in passing.  The fact that such a situation is utterly obscene and could be stopped is not mentioned – it is as if none of us could have imagined that anything might go wrong.

But maybe this is about to change.  True, football authoriities have got away with organising disastrous and chaotic finals for years, ranging from the England match at Wembley, to the Champions League final in Paris.  And each time the chaos is mentioned, it is downgraded below results and reports of matches, as if the result of matches is more important than people’s lives.

I have on just one or two occasions had a chance to put the point to people in broadcasting in particular, and the media in general, the fact that without the media coverage, there would be no World Cup and similar competitions, and so no deaths, and the answer is, “we just cover what is happening”.   Except they don’t and the incompetence and greed leading to more and more deaths and injuries at big matches continues.

But now the legal fallout from such insane incompetence might finally show football that this can’t go on.  As with the headline from the Athletic covered in the New York Times, Copa America final chaos: 100 days on, what is the legal fall-out?

In one sense the cause of these utter catastrophes (which don’t just happen in the build-up to matches, but also in the building of the stadia prior to events such as the World Cup) doesn’t matter.  It happens, and we know with a horrible certainty after each event that it will happen again, and again.

Indeed consider the absolute obscenity of the fact that as we see events such as when an escalator inside Hard Rock Stadium failed and a stairway collapsed.   The authorities immediately rushed out the story that “unruly” fans were to blame – and the media accepted it – it was the fans’ fault.

But we know from massive past experience that wherever in the world large football events are arranged there is a strong chance of disaster, whether that is in London, or Paris or some faraway country we have never visited.

However at least one thing is changing – after such events legal claims are now being lodged by the thousand.    This often doesn’t happen because the people who are injured and the families of those who are killed, are in another country, and suing across borders is hard.   But there are reports of significant legal cases following the Copa America final between Argentina and Colombia in Miami on July 14.   There is talk that CONMEBOL (which runs football across South America, as well as the stadium and its management company), might not survive the legal onslaught.

It is terrible of course that we have had to get to the point where a fulsome response of holding the organisers of an event responsible for its outcome depends on where the event is held, but that’s how it goes.

And of course we will always have the complaint from authorities that it was not their fault, it was the fault of those without tickets turning up and trying to get in.   People without tickets turning up trying to get in?   Whoever heard of such a thing?

Remember the headlines. “Witnesses describe huge queues outside stadium before Euro 2020 final and scenes of ‘raw aggression’ inside.”   That wasn’t in a third world country either.  That was Wembley.   Total chaos caused by an inability to consider what might happen.   Just as the Champions League final in Paris resulted in total chaos caused by… well, you know.

The extraordinary thing about the grotesque inability of football authorities to organise big events is that the media manages to treat each event as unique and nothing the authorities could have planned for.   Hence the authorities that oversaw the chaos then remain in place.   Nothing happened to the FA after the Wembley fiasco, nor to Uefa after the Paris final.  Nothing will happen ever to Fifa….

Instead Fifa have found a way around this, by giving world cup finals to countries not known for the openness of its media reporting.  And elsewhere the authorities always have the excuse of “Thousands of unticketed fans” entering the stadium.

At least in the USA there is a legal system and actions are following.  According to the Athletic there is “.At least one criminal case, lodged against the son of the Colombian Football Federation’s president,” which is “pending a potential trial next month.”

I am not sure such events will stop the feeling in football authorities that their sense of entitlement extends to everything, but maybe it would help.

Of course, the media could help too, by refusing to pay billions of dollars to cover such events, money that is paid knowing how many have died in the past, in countries where the protection of migrant workers is not an item that this on the table.

Maybe the vast array of court cases surrounding the final in the Hard Rock Stadium will finally make footballing authorities see that they can’t get away with multiple deaths with no consequence, secure that the media will continue to see that “the game’s the thing” and maiming and death is just an acceptable by-product.

The point about the legal cases following the tragedy in the United States is that they are against the footballing organisation that put the event on, the venue and the crowd management company. That might make a difference.