Rio de Janeiro: Around 80 ticketless Chilean fans took their interest in football to the extreme as they stormed the media centre in a bid to enter the Maracana on Wednesday ahead of their country’s Group B match against Spain.
There was commotion all around in the sprawling hall 45 minutes before the kick-off as strangers clad in the red jersey of Chile ran helter-skelter through the media area.
Journalists ducked for cover as they had no clue about the invaders. Soon it became clear that they were Chilean fans who wanted to take in the action through a short-cut.
But the entry to the pitch from the media centre was immediately locked. The intrepid invaders had been cornered.
They toppled a makeshift wall in panic before stewards rounded them up. Their game was up in five minutes.
Fifa took a serious view of the incident. “Ahead of the Chile-Spain match, a group of intruders without tickets violently forced entry into the stadium, breaking fences and overrunning security. They were detained by the security and none of them made it to the seats.
“The situation was brought under control quickly and at least 85 intruders were detained according to the military police in Rio,” the world governing body of football said in a statement.
There weren’t adequate security personnel near the X-ray counter, which is the entry point to the media centre. Even after a group of fans had barged into the Maracana through the public entry to watch the Argentina-Bosnia match on Sunday, the local organisers and Fifa hadn’t taken measures to beef up security.
According to local TV reports, the invaders have been ordered to leave Brazil within 72 hours. The adventurous Chilean fans missed a cracking match which they could have enjoyed in a pub or public screening.
The place they chose to invade was all wrong as hundreds of journalists got a ‘breaking’ story without leaving their seats.
