Laura Williamson
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
They left it late to get into the stadium and then a crush developed.
And the reaction was to shut the gates, which just meant people had nowhere to go.
And the kickoff was delayed and it was very scary, very scary.
I think FIFA would say that, well, that wasn't our tournament.
We didn't run that operation.
It will be very different at the World Cup.
And I do think it will be in terms of the perimeter, sort of the outside boundary of the stadiums is quite a long way away from the actual bowl area.
which will sort of help the flow of people, which is often where problems occur.
We've seen it here, for example, at the Stade de France with the Champions League final, the European Championship a couple of years ago, with crushes developing as people get there late.
But I think the wider surface area will definitely help there.
I think there's going to be security issues about what people are bringing into stadiums.
in terms of flags and political banners and slogans and things like that.
That was a huge issue in Qatar with people wanting to bring flags protesting about human rights, etc.
into stadiums and getting them taken off them or denied entry.
I think we'll see that on a different level at this tournament.
And then in terms of general public safety, I've been reading about some action on drones and the use of drones above stadiums.
And that's, again, a bit of an unknown.
We don't know what's going to happen there.
But I do think the sort of flow of people, if you like, in terms of their physical safety matters.
that we'll be as well prepared as we possibly can be because of the large distance outside the stadiums and then trying to communicate to people to get there early, etc.