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World Cup organisers blast German watchdog over security
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-01-18 10:20

BERLIN (AFP) - World Cup organisers called for German consumer protection watchdog Stiftung Warentest to revise its report warning of "serious deficiencies" in security at four of the 12 stadiums to be used during the football finals starting in June.

The independent group released a study last week showing that the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Veltins Arena in the western city of Gelsenkirchen and Leipzig's Zentralstadion in eastern Germany were ill-equipped to cope with a stampede.

The Stiftung Warentest study found that there was no plan to allow fans to enter the pitch in case of a mass panic.

"Stiftung Warentest must revise its report," Horst Schmidt, a vice-president on the World Cup organising committee, told a news conference Tuesday.

"We demand that Stiftung Warentest withdraw the red cards it showed the stadiums of Kaiserslautern, Gelsenkirchen, Berlin and Leipzig.

"The image this study gives our stadiums in Germany or abroad does not correspond at all to reality: these stadiums have in place the most efficient security measures possible," Schmidt said.

"We think that the study in question is very debatable since it doesn't take into account the complexity of the question of security... (experts) have deliberated a subject without linking it to the whole question of security."

Stiftung Warentest's study found that in Berlin there was a three-metre wide ditch separating the crowd section of the stadium from the playing field, while in Leipzig in an emergency fans would have to scale a concrete wall and then leap over 3.4m to get to safety.

The watchdog's conclusions run in stark contrast to assurances from World Cup organisers that with 1.4 billion euros spent in the last five years in rebuilding and renovating the World Cup stadia there would be no cause for concern in terms of public safety.

The group identified a fourth stadium -- Fritz Walter in the southwestern city of Kaiserslautern -- that had serious faults in terms of fire protection.
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