TWELVE accused, sitting behind screens of bullet-proof glass in a
specially enlarged courtroom, guarded night and day by more than 100
police. Row upon row of handicapped people in wheelchairs. A giant video
screen in an adjoining hall for members of the public unable to squeeze
into the main court.
Last week, the trial of those responsible for the Furiani football
stadium disaster opened in Bastia. And this being football mad,
gun-running Corsica, no precautions were too much.
Around 8.30pm on May 5, 1992, at Furiani, just outside Bastia,
temporary -- and it seems criminally gerry-built seating erected in
record time for the French football cup semi-final between Sporting Club
de Bastia and Olympique de Marseille -- collapsed.
Half of one of the terraces simply fell apart, tumbling 3000 people
from a height of 30ft into a ghastly tangle of steel scaffolding.
Seventeen fans died and more than 2300, half of them under the age of
25, were injured. Hundreds of the latter, now seriously handicapped, are
only beginning to tackle the grim survival problems of re-education and
finding work.
Simply reading out the names of all the victims in the courtroom took
several hours. And even before the trial could begin to apportion blame,
insurance companies had paid out some #24m to victims.
For a place like impoverished Corsica, with a population of only a
quarter of a million, saddled with high unemployment and rampant crime,
riddled with clannishness and vendetta -- 40 people were murdered last
year -- Furiani was an especially cruel catastrophe.
Preliminary investigations leading up to the trial, expected to last
another three weeks, already have shown that the disaster was caused by
much more than just technical neglect or incompetence. The temporary
terraces may have been shoddily built.
But responsibilities for the building work are multiple, which is why
not only construction company executives but football club directors and
local politicians too are in the dock. Even the local prefect, Henri
Hurand, the official representative of central government in Corsica, is
there, accused of homicide.
The man missing is Jean-Francois Filippi, millionaire businessman and
former chairman of the Bastia club, who took the final decision to erect
temporary seating for 10,000 at Furiani. He was gunned down at point
blank range outside his home last Boxing Day.
One Corsican commented: ''We don't know whether the murder had
anything to do with the Furiani disaster. But Jean-Francois had recently
swopped his Smith & Wesson reolver for an Uzi submachine-gun. When a man
does that in Corsica, it shows he's worried about something''.
Like the rundown city of Marseille just across the water, Corsica
derives immense pride and joy from football. Supporters traditionally
greet wins by firing shotguns in the air and letting off deafening
fireworks.
So everyone moved with great haste when it was announced that the tiny
Sporting Club de Bastia would play the giant Olympique de Marseille in
the French semi-final. Local authorities feared there might be riots if
there were not enough seats to go round.
All of Corisca, it seemed, wanted to watch the match, which was
scheduled for the modest 8700-place Armand Cesari stadium.
During the night, following announcement of the fixture, and without
planning permission, part of the stadium was simply demolished, free of
charge, by a construction company belonging to a former Bastia club
chairman, Francois Vendasi, in order to make way for extra seating.
Several contractors refused the #80,000 contract to build temporary
terraces because of the extremely tight schedule. Jean-Marie Boimond,
director of the Nice company Sud Tribunes, who accepted, managed to
erect three terraces in the space of a week. It was the northern one
which collapsed.
Last week, the Bastia court heard how both local government and
football authorities negelected normal supervision and safety controls
of the temporary seating at Furiani to ensure it was built as quickly as
possible, for as many as possible: even before the terracing was
finished, a request for 10,000 extra tickets was sent to the French
Football Federation.
An independent construction expert told the court that the scaffolding
had been so shoddily built that the risks of an accident were ''100%''.
The miracle, it seems, is that the two other temporary terraces, dashed
off in one week using similar poor scaffolding techniques, actually
stayed up.
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