Thousands of fans had lined up for hours in the morning outside the closed gates of the Basra International Stadium to attend the final match of the tournament, the Arabian Gulf Cup, that pitted Iraq against Oman.
Some were holding tickets that turned out to be fake and others were hoping to get tickets at the site, according to a witness, Mohammed, who asked to be identified by his first name only to discuss ticket fraud. When ticket takers opened the gates, “they lost control and the stampede began,” Mohammed said.
Several hours after the crush, the stadium reopened its gates and prepared for the match to go ahead as scheduled. Twitter messages from an Iraqi soccer website showed the 65,000-seat stadium filled to capacity five hours before the planned 7 p.m. kickoff.The media director for the Basra governorate, Safaa al-Firajii, said that one man had died in the stampede and that at least 60 people had been injured. Iraq’s state news agency confirmed the initial death toll. This year’s edition of the biennial Arabian Gulf Cup has been plagued by the sale of fake tickets from the start. Saud Khaldoun, a teacher from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, said that he and his sons traveled more than 500 miles to Basra for the opening match two weeks ago after buying three tickets from a Kirkuk tourism company.