The Stade Armand-Cesari disaster happened at

Bastia Bastia (, , , ; co, Bastìa ) is a commune in the department of Haute-Corse, Corsica, France. It is located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It also has the second-highest population of any commune on the is ...

on the French island of Corsica at the Stade Armand-Cesari, on 5 May 1992. 18 people were killed when one of the terraces collapsed. On that day,

SC Bastia Sporting Club Bastiais ( co, Sporting Club di Bastia, commonly referred to as SC Bastia or simply Bastia) is a Corsican association football club based in Bastia on the island of Corsica. The club plays in Ligue 2, the second tier of French f ...

faced Olympique de Marseille for a semifinal match in the

French Cup The Coupe de France, formerly known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and professiona ...

. Marseille was unarguably the best team in France at the time, and the board of Bastia wanted to take advantage of it by adding a large-capacity stand, to increase the number of seats by 50%. Local authorities approved the project without restrictions. Before the game, the stand collapsed, killing 18 and leaving over 2,300 injured. Structural problems, such as instability, were noticeable in the hour before the match. The structure collapsed at 20:23

CEST CEST or cest may refer to: * Central European Summer Time (UTC+2), daylight saving time observed in the central European time zone * Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory * Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer, a subset of Magnetization transfer in ...

, shortly before the scheduled start of the match. Supporters and media were trapped in the wreckage. The match was never played. All medical resources on the island were fully committed to dealing with the injured and many of the victims were eventually evacuated to the mainland; the airport was reported as resembling a field hospital.

Investigation

An investigation was opened into the disaster. The investigation concluded there had been a number of violations of rules concerning the construction of the temporary terrace, and in the management of ticketing, and that the attitude of sporting and municipal executives had been problematic. The report concluded "Le soir du 5 mai, il n'y a pas eu de fatalité" (). After a trial a number of those found responsible served short sentences.

Later developments

Since the disaster, Armand-Césari slowly improved, leaving only one of the four stands from 1992. This "under construction" stadium surprised the players from

S.L. Benfica Sport Lisboa e Benfica (), commonly known as Benfica, is a professional football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. Founded on 28 February 1904 as ''Sport Lisboa'', Be ...

in 1997, as they believed this was the training pitch. Some major improvements finally started at the end of 1996, for a final capacity of 18,000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armand Cesari disaster 20th century in Corsica Stadium disasters 1992 industrial disasters SC Bastia Olympique de Marseille 1991–92 Coupe de France Building and structure collapses in 1992 Building and structure collapses in France May 1992 events in Europe