Fake bomb at U.K. stadium sparks security fears
MANCHESTER, England — The discovery of a fake bomb inside Old Trafford brought embarrassment and potentially a $5.1-million Cdn bill to Manchester United, raising serious questions about the security arrangements in place at the home of one of the world’s biggest sports teams.
It was also a stark reminder of the vulnerability of sports stadiums ahead of upcoming events like the European Championship in France and the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and the tense atmosphere that exists among sports fans and authorities after last year’s Paris attacks.
United took no chances when a mobile-phone device, taped inside a bathroom cubicle in a corner of Old Trafford, was discovered by a member of staff shortly before the Premier League match against Bournemouth on Sunday. Two stands were evacuated immediately, and soon after, the game was called off and the rest of the 75,000-seat stadium was evacuated.
Army bomb-disposal experts blew up the device, described by police as “incredibly lifelike,” before police said hours later that it had been left behind by a private company following a security-training exercise using search dogs on Wednesday.
“Fiasco is the right word. It was shambolic,” Greater Manchester Mayor Tony Lloyd said Monday. “Of course, United are a huge organization. It wasn’t, I think, the fact they’re the world’s richest club, it was the fact that the security had missed something that in the end ought to have been found.”
Many people who were at the match have praised the way the evacuation by United was handled in unique circumstances. It was the first game in the Premier League’s 24-year history that has been cancelled on security grounds.
United executive vice chairman Ed Woodward said he was “proud of how our staff responded” and deemed the evacuation a “complete success.”
In a statement, Woodward said the private company had signed that the device had been recovered at the end of the training drill, and that the device “could not have been detected by sniffer dogs on the routine matchday search, as it contained no explosives and was used in an exercise training handlers, not dogs.”
On Monday, the head of the security company apologized for leaving the device inside the stadium, saying he forgot to remove it because he had a similar one already in his bag.
Sharryn McKelvie, who attended the game as part of a group of 40 United fans from all over the world, gave a mixed assessment of the club’s handling of the evacuation. She told the Associated Press that messages by a stadium announcer “were starting to cause more panic among people.”
“One of us asked a steward after the game was abandoned, ‘What’s the update, mate?’ ” said McKelvie, who is a security manager for the University of Edinburgh. “He said the best thing you can do is go back to your car, turn the radio on and get an update that way.
“I think it’s outrageous that in this day and age, at a worldwide club that United is, that after a training exercise they didn’t have standards in place to check everything is finished at the end of it,” McKelvie said. “Somebody’s head should roll for that one. It wasn’t because of a random attack, it was because of somebody’s stupidity that caused this chaos.”
The United-Bournemouth game has been rearranged for today, at an estimated cost of about $5.1 million to United because of things like compensation for supporters and policing.
Fans of Bournemouth, a club from the south coast of England, face an 800-kilometre round trip for the second time in three days to attend the rescheduled match. Bournemouth has offered free bus travel to its fans and United has offered a refund to all supporters inconvenienced by Sunday’s postponement, as well as a free ticket for today’s game.
Yet, for many overseas-based fans, the opportunity to watch United has passed. McKelvie said only six of her 40-strong party from Sunday were expected to attend today.