Safety and Crowd Management in Sports - Essay Example

Running Head: Safety And Crowd Management In Sports University Name: Sports has made the world to be so attractive, millions of dollars change hands to avail football to our television sets, athletes of all backgrounds go faster higher and further while fully professional tennis players win gold at the Olympics. The world of sport is uplifting since it brings inspiration and hope for the future. Sports cannot be there without spectators since the world of sport demands the spectator’s attention. Sport has been a very powerful force in the current world and is becoming increasingly promising with both the players and the spectators becoming sports addicts. However, sport has been facing some disasters, which largely affects the spectators. The disasters encountered by spectators in the sporting areas normally occurs as a result of damage to structures, crowd crushing, gas leaks, terrorism, failing of the public address system, extreme weather conditions, emergency evacuations, delays in starting games, attack on the playing area, power failure, ticket forgery, failure of the electronic information board, look out among others. The end result of the above causes is death or injury to the spectator as a result of collapsing of the ancient accommodations, violence driven by crowd crush and fires necessitated by gas leaks and power failure. (Wong, 2002) Several disasters have occurred in the world of sports injuring the spectators and at other times causing death. In the year 1972, for example, six spectators died at Ibrox Park in Glasgow and hundreds suffered serious injuries. The death of the six spectators was caused by structural failure where the stairway (steel barrier) caved in suffocating the six people to death while several other suffered bruises, fractures and associated injuries following the crush. This led to the starting of Whitley committee, which saw the enactment of the safety of sports grounds Act in 1975, which applied to all stadiums with provision for spectator’s accommodation. (Nielsen, 1995) Another example of spectator’s exposure to risk as noted by Wong (2002) is that of the suicide bombing attack that occurred outside the stadium in university of Oklahoma in Norman. This was seen as suicide bombing and was very dangerous since the memorial stadium had more than eighty-four thousands spectators at the time of attack. In a country like Canada many hockey spectators are said to suffer injury ranging from body fractures and blindness. This injuries are as a result of the deflected shots whose speed is about 150km/hr. Poorly maintained arenas is another root to the face and had injuries suffered. This saw the Canadian standards Association (CSA) publish newly designed standards aimed at reducing non – partisan and to the spectators in particular. This was done through printing relevant warnings on the tickets for the events, erecting posters and signs with highly visible warnings throughout the stadium, asking the spectators to pay undivided attention to “flying” objects during matches and lastly making regular and perpetual broadcast announcements warning the spectators and other stakeholders of potential dangers during sporting events. These in return has brought the need to avoid the risks caused through employing ordinary care in the stadiums to ensure that the spectators are well protected. Other forms of averting these hazards are discussed under. According to Mintiberg (2000), the responsibility of ensuring safety to spectators falls squarely on the management of the sports ground. When drawing the contingency plans the arena management body should employ necessary risk evaluation practices which will greatly assist in ensuring normal sports operations hence reduced hazards. Emergencies will always occur at the sports arena without warning minor problems should be dealt within a systematic and controlled way to avoid occurrence of major problems. The ground management team should ensure swift response to any emerging difficulties however minor. Being a responsibility to the ground management team, contingency planning should be treated in integrated context with the inclusion of training, written spectators safety guidelines, communications equipments and personnel and exercise planning. (Jennifer, 2003) Another study by Jennifer (2003) observes that, safety management measures will always be subjected to public inspection after an occurrence of an event. The stadium management should therefore ensure that adequate contingency plans are put in place. This will be done through establishing a clear control and command structure documenting a spectators policy statement and proper role assigning to ensure duties are carried on well by trained officials. The management should link with the police, emergency services and the local authority in order to identify the expected support under different situations. In addition, ground mgt’s contingency plans should come up with ways on how to contain incidences using its own resources and personnel. Highly effective communication policy should be put in place this should incorporate coordinated ways of alerting the emergency services and ground personnel. There should be an efficient procedure aimed at community with the spectators in both the affected and the safe areas, this will help advising them on what to do without wasting time, the safety personnel should be provided with clothing’s that with help the spectators to easily identify them so as to avoid any confusion over an incident location, all areas of the arena should be clearly identified safely personnel should be recruited on merit i.e. well trained thus possessing the necessary knowledge and skill. The contingency plan should hence a provision for documents such as the safety certificates from the local authority to a given sports ground, spectators safety policy statements, personnel’s flow description alongside their safety management responsibilities and any statement of intent settled between the police and the management. (Wong, 2002) Allision (1989) points out that, the incident response personnel should have immediate access to several documents, which should be attached in the contingency plans. These include Major telephone points and stadium telephone directory with details of duty electrician, fire fighting service, ambulance service, events safety officer, local authority, local hospital and transport services, stadium management voluntary agencies, crowd doctor among other important personnel. Grounds plan indicating location of key safety elements for example main telephone points, agreed access roots, casualty handling regions, fighting equipments, control room and its back up facility control points, car parks, electrical sub-stations, first aid points, entrance and exit points, lift motor rooms, gas and water stop cocks. Proper action plan details to be used by safety officer, public announcer and switchboard operator in response to occurring incidences. List of emergency messages that can easily be pre-identified by the spectators. The dilapidated accommodation should be renovated, or completely brought down to pave way for safe modern buildings so as to avoid incidences accruing as a result of these ancient accommodations. In case of an incidence occurrence the ground management should contact the insurance company, deploy temporally security men on the site of incidence, look for alternative venues for other scheduled matches, higher engineers and surveyors in case of damage of arena structures, deploy the salvage team, get in touch with the loss adjuster etc. The green guide as cited by Loy (2001) in his book Sports And Social Systems, provides guidance on the evaluation of the number of spectators that can be safely accommodated within the sports grounds. It offers guidance for design and management practices for new grounds. The guide recommends eight minutes evacuation time for low risk areas, six minutes for normal risk areas and 2.5 minutes evaluation time for high risk areas for example, hospitality areas. Shared exit routes should be designed using 2.5 minutes evacuation flow rate, for the hospitality and spectator accommodation areas exit routes should be designed using eight minutes evacuation flow rate while for separate exit lanes spectators accommodation lane can have eight minutes evacuation time and hospitality area lane can have 2.5 minutes exit time. (Loy, 2001) It further recommends a maximum of seventy-three spectators per metre per width per minute to all routes within seated accommodation including ramps, concourses and gangways. 109 spectators flow rate per metre width per minute elsewhere within the stadium, this will help in determining the total number of spectators to be served by a given exit route. The designers should also make provisions for fire fighting through installation of fire fighting equipment. (Loy, 2001) As noted by Nielsen (1995), the law requires that all employers must always ensure the safety of the people who work for them and all other individuals who are involved. With this the local authorities, governing bodies, outdoor activity centres and managers of sports facilities must ensure safety for all. The sport managers must practice risk management, which is a special type of crisis planning that is, aimed at preventing legal crises from occurring. This should be incorporated in their sport organizations overall crisis planning strategies. These will include: - Staying up to date on the current legal trends or legislative characters that applies to the sports industry. This can be achieved through attending workshops and in service training programs to keep the updated on matters relating their rights and responsibilities. Hiring and training individuals to ensure quality performances by the employers will help in avoiding any instances of risk. Here the managers should insist certification he might also decide on showing video’s and films to assist in proper on-the-job training. Managers should always insist on proper supervision and training of member’s athletes, spectators or any other group whose safety is the manager’s number one responsibility. Managers should ensure that all facilities are safe and are checked at constant intervals. These equipments should be up to date designed properly, used for the specific functions in which they were created for, well maintained and properly supervised. This will ensure that equipments like fire extinguishes are in order should an event of fire occur. All sports policies and procedures should be put in writing and must be comprehensible to all. The procedures and policies should be translated into various languages to ensure easy understanding to all concerned stakeholders. Managers should have written waivers for the participants and the waivers should be sport specific as far as their wording is concerned and should be signed by participants or their guardians where necessary. Managers should ensure that everyone and everything is covered by insurance. This includes participant’s facilities and equipments full time employees as well as the part time employees. This should be done through checking with his professional association to determine the extent and type of the required coverage. Managers can also hire the services of specialist, for example, spectator Management group (SMG) that develops an impressive list of national and international clientele in the US. Its business strategy is three fold i.e. to increase revenue and event activities, improve service quality and reduce operating costs. Its success has come from assuming management control of publicly held facilities or failing privately held areas that have been operating at a loss and placing a drain on taxpayers and local community leaders. They draw from industry specialists in all areas of management and marketing facilities. These specialists are responsible for all aspects of facility management and yet accountable and responsible directly to the local community to whom they provide their services. They are also sensitive to the community needs and interests and normally utilize staff and professionals from the community. This management team concept has been the key to spectator, which provides its clients with planning, administrative, operations, finance, marketing and public relations services. (Loy, 2001) It also provides a consulting service to clientele involved in facility planning project managers and architectural firms. This is done in four phases, which are Programming (equipment needs, costs, location.) as the first phase, specification in the second phase, procurement (identifying qualified bidders and manufacturers) in the third phase and lastly, Installation and co-ordination as the last phase. Snyder and Spreitzer (1996) concludes that, great emphasis should be placed on expanding mediated sport, which makes the sports contest on television appealing to the audience. While televised the event is normally a colourful spectacle. Here the fan at home is aided and assisted in interpreting the contest by the television camera, which focuses on the action deemed important. Announcers add to this focus as their commentary reinforces and heightens the significance of the contest and its players. Technological supplementation such as the instance replay focuses the far even more intensely and allows the most noteworthy of the events to be dissected further and commented upon by the announcer. This mediated sport will help in reducing overcrowding in stadiums thus reducing the occurrence of risks. Implementing the above-suggested solutions will no doubt curtail the suffered dangers hence ensuring the spectators safety. Referees Allision, K. (1989): Sports Leagues And The Antitrust Laws, Government And The Sports Business, New York, Macmillan. Pp23-84 Wong, G. (2002): The Law Of Amateur Sports, St. Paul, West Publishing Company. Pp 43-52 Mintiberg H. (2000): The Nature Of Management Work, England Cliffs, Prentice Hall. Pp 8-36 Nielsen, C. (1995): Let’s Look At Sports, New York Macmillan. Pp 16-92 Loy, W. (2001): Sports And Social Systems, Reading, Addison Wesley. Pp 90-114 Snyder, E. and Spreitzer, E. (1996): Social Aspects Of Sports, Englewood Cliff, Prentice Hall. Pp 30-84 Jennifer, M. (2003): Sports Ethics, New York, McGraw-Hill. Pp 44-89 Read More