The scenes at Sunday’s Copa America remaining have been a humiliation for CONMEBOL — the South American confederation that organized the event — however the Miami Dolphins may be left paying the worth.
As folks lined as much as enter Arduous Rock Stadium forward of the ultimate between Argentina and Colombia, followers with out tickets stormed the gates and hopped fences to enter the stadium grounds. Outnumbered law enforcement officials tried to regain management of the state of affairs, and the match begin was delayed about 90 minutes. However the state of affairs was so out of hand that after the gates reopened, tickets weren’t scanned in any respect.
That led to absolute mayhem inside the stadium. And in keeping with the Dolphins, unruly followers induced “vital injury” to components of Arduous Rock Stadium’s amenities.
Arduous Rock Stadium officers stated, through the Solar-Sentinel:
“All through the afternoon and night, there have been quite a few makes an attempt by unruly followers with out tickets to overpower safety and legislation enforcement personnel at entry factors to the stadium,” the assertion stated, later including that the unruly followers have been “preventing law enforcement officials, breaking down partitions and barricades and vandalizing the stadium, inflicting vital injury to the property.”
Movies hit social media displaying followers crawling by way of vents to realize entry to the stadium along with damaging different obstacles. Escalators contained in the membership ranges have been additionally utterly torn aside.
Right here is the video when the escalator broke or the fast aftermath.
📸 @ONLYinDADE #CopaAmerica #Colombia #Argentina pic.twitter.com/Qx4UeGZjJu
— Favian Renkel (@FavianRenkel) July 15, 2024
NEW: The Copa America remaining noticed 27 followers arrested and 55 folks ejected from Arduous Rock Stadium, Miami-Dade Police Division says in a press launch.
There have been 800 legislation enforcement officers from eight completely different South Florida organizations working the sport.
Chief Public Security…
— Safid Deen 💯💯💯💯 (@Safid_Deen) July 15, 2024
Arduous Rock Stadium is a venue for the 2026 World Cup, however CONMEBOL — which refused help from U.S. Soccer in planning the 2024 Copa — is not going to be concerned with event organizing. The Dolphins even have about three weeks to restore the injury (or limit entry to impacted areas) forward of open coaching camp on the stadium.
