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AFP

NAIROBI — Seven Kenyan football fans were killed Saturday when crowds jostled to enter a stadium in the capital Nairobi where historical rival teams clashed in a premier league fixture, police and Red Cross officals said.

Crowds were pushing their way to get into Nairobi's Nyayo National Stadium where two separate gates were open for the rival supporters on a rainy Saturday evening, trampling on the victims.

"Our emergency rescue teams are on the ground and they have been able to confirm the deaths of six people whose bodies have been found outside the stadium. They are five male and a female," said Titus Mung'ou, the Kenya Red Cross spokesman.

"We are also confirming that another person has succumbed to injuries at the Kenyatta National Hospital," he added.

The match between prennial rivals Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards ended in a one-goal defeat for the Leopards.

Nairobi deputy police chief Moses Nyakwama said: "Twelve people have been rushed to hospital with critical injuries."

In 2005, at least one person was trampled to death during a World Cup qualifier between Kenya and Morocco at the 35,000-capacity Nyayo National Stadium, leading to a two-year FIFA ban.

The stadium was eventually limited to 25,000 people.

BBC

Africa's abysmal record in safely holding football matches is once again under scrutiny after a stadium stampede took the lives of eight football fans last month.

One official from football's world governing body Fifa described the tragedy as a "classic case" of a badly organised football match.

Supporters were crushed as they tried to enter Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi, Kenya, to watch the biggest fixture in the domestic footballing calendar - a Premier League match between Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards.

To minimize the risk of further casualties, the game was halted for just a few minutes before being restarted.

Six people were killed at the stadium, while two more died in hospital as a result of their injuries.

Fifa's director of stadiums and security Walter Gagg told the BBC that in much of Africa, unfit infrastructure and poor organisation is crippling the continent's ability to safely put on football matches.

He said the Nyayo stadium tragedy had not been run following Fifa's safety guidelines, or that of the African football governing body, Caf.

He added that he believed most African football authorities simply cannot deal with large numbers of fans.

"Most of the stadiums in Africa, they do not have numbered seats," he told World Football on the BBC World Service.

"They just have some seats in concrete; they do not have individual seats. That means that they never know if there are 20,000 or 25,000 spectators inside the stadium. As long as we do not have under control the tickets sold, we never will have control of the spectators.

"We believe this was the case in Nairobi."