Abu Dhabi and Baghdad
CNN
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Golf Cup The final between Iraq and Oman will go ahead as scheduled in Basra on Thursday, Iraqi football officials said, despite a deadly stampede outside the stadium hours earlier.
“The match between the Iraqi and Omani national teams will take place as scheduled,” the Iraqi Football Association said. “We call upon honorable fans not to come to the match stadium as the stands are completely full.”
Earlier on Thursday, one person was killed and at least 60 injured in a stampede near Jajaa al-Nakhla Stadium, where Iraq and Oman were expected to play in the final of the Arabian Gulf Cup, Iraq’s state-run news agency (INA) reported. .
Thousands of fans gathered in and around the stadium hours before kickoff in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the game.
After the stampede, Iraq’s interior ministry said the stadium’s gates were now “closed” and no more fans would be allowed inside, INA reported.
INA reported that the Iraqi police asked those without tickets not to enter the stadium to avoid the crowd.
“The number of fans is very large, and we don’t want to cause suffocating incidents and build up security forces,” Iraqi police spokesman Saad Maan said in a statement published on INA.
Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Yahya Rasool called on fans to gather at entertainment zones where the game will be played on big screens.
This is the first time that Iraq has hosted the Golf Cup in the capital Baghdad since 1979.
Video sent to CNN shows fans sitting inside the stadium after the stampede. The seating areas hosting the Iraqi fans were completely filled, while the section designated for the Omani fans was empty, pending their arrival later in the day.
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