The Corsican French Cup Stadium Disaster of 1992 | Episode 110

Hey everyone, Brad here, We've been together for six and a half years now, and while it's been a bumpy ride at times, I am about to ask for your help in changing everything for the better. Let me explain. A little while ago, I found myself trapped in a bathroom with a two and a half year old chitsuit and by the time I was done, she had inspired me to create a card game with a buddy of mine, and from that awkward conversation was born Peepee Pooh Pooh and easy to learn, crazy to play, oddly strategic game that's basically poker meats GoFish, but with pee pooh and farts. We have tested the absolutely living hell out of this thing and the response has been incredible. Now, for a project like this to blow up, word of mouth is absolutely everything. Every share, mention or recommendation really genuinely helps more than you could know. So if this wonderfully ridiculous little project of mind maybe laugh, please consider sharing it. I see they are doing that gimme, gimme thing with your hand, so let me say this. When this launches on Kickstarter during the first three days, there's an early bird special where you will get a copy of Peepie Poopoo for seven dollars off. That's twenty percent and for those of you who do, you will be thrown into a draw for your chance to win a pile of free Doomsday shirts and one of three free peepe Poopoo vi I Poo tears. And if you want to learn more about it, you can check out Peepee Poopoo on Kickstarter. Won't you help spread the love and the poo on with the show. There's an awful trend in urban architecture where designers purposely create some of the most awkward and uncomfortable seating possible to discourage people from sitting for too long, be them elderly, or or infirm or homeless. Well, today we are going to discuss an awful trend in sports architecture that encourages you to leave the stadium as quickly as physically possible. That's all, no spoilers, Hello and welcome to Doomsday Histories Most Dangerous Podcast. Together we are going to rediscover some of the most traumatic, bizarre, and awe inspiring but largely unheard of or forgotten disasters from throughout human history and around the world. On today's episode, we will be traveling to beautiful Corsica and learning why people not from there think the locals are xenophobic, bloodthirsty monsters. Will learn how when it comes to architecture and building quality, you can have things done cheap and fast, but not safe. And you will hear the term bleediest used as an adjective. And if you were listening to this on Patreon, you would learn about a few of the most debilitating, teeth spitting, femur shattering moments in the history of European football. You would learn the mostly tragic tale of the most famous headbudd in history. You would learn the unexpectedly crazy history of soccer's favorite shoe brand, and we would discuss the kinds of things that your brain can't unsee, including the worst thing that I have ever seen in my life, which just happened last week. This is not the show you play around kids, or while eating, or even in mixed company, But as long as you find yourself a little more historically engaged and learn something that could potentially save your life, our work is done. So with all that said, shoot the kids out of the room, put on your headphones and safety glasses, and let's begin. I have said this before, but soccer or football or football has the power to bring people together like no other activity on earth. Since the ancient Chinese first kicked rock filled cow stomachs around a field, to the medieval peasants of England practically murdering each other in its name, to today's modern multi billion dollar sports entertainment enterprise, soccer remains eternal. The game really came into its own in the eighteen hundreds before it began its unyielding sprawl around the globe, and by the late eighteen hundreds it had made its way to France. Ah France a picturesque place spoil with natural beauty and culture and history and wine. This is a place that is home to forty five thousand chateaus and castles that dot the landscape. And you would think, damn, that is a lot, and it is. But compare that to two million acres of vineyards. France produces almost five billion leaders of wine a year. It would take Ernest Hemingway almost four years to drink that much. For my American listeners, that's about one point three billion gallons, and for my younger listeners that's about four point two billion beer bonds. Full of wine. France has definitely given the world some of the greatest culinary experiences in history, and depending on your experience, there is always the chance that you may find the French to be I don't want to say rude, but fair warning. The customer service might be a little blunt. Travelers to France often describe experiencing alternatively either warmth and charm or a kind of blunt unfriendliness which you might find off putting, or they reveal themselves to you as your new spirit animal. French people can come across as abrupt with visitors. It's because they aren't focused on forced friendliness. Your waiter Philip is unlikely to ask how your niece's softball game went. Now, let me point out that this kind of thing happens in plenty of European countries, mostly in tourist hotspots, and it's hard to maintain a psychological sense of self after the one hundredth tourist has asked you to take a picture of them, but make sure you can see the Eiffel Tower in the back and make it look like I'm pushing it. For most people, being on like performing emotionally for people all day is exhausting a million visits a year for the last seven hundred years. You might screen the national anthem in the face of some tourists who ask where the toilet was too. It does go deeper than that. If you were to find yourself on the receiving end of a frozen stare, it's probably because you broke some rule of etiquette. The kind of fiery, passionate people who would regularly cut the heads off leaders and royalty for slighting them do not do well telling an endless dream of foreigners that they do not serve mountain dew. You can just chalk the whole thing up to emotional exhaustion. In North America, we prioritize this warmth and approachability at all costs. We start by acting friendly and then we try to earn your respect. While in Europe they prioritize merit and authenticity. They start by figuring out how much respect you deserve and then decide how friendly to be. And if you think that sounds rude, just shut up and listen to the rest of the story. So we're traveling to France. You said soccer, So are we gonna go watch soccer? It's soccer isn't it right soccer? Well, yes and no. We will see some soccer today, but we will probably do a layover in France on our way, because today we are actually headed to the French island of Corsica. And you may be thinking, isn't Corsica one of those gorgeous, colorful Mediterranean islands. Why? Yes, Imagine an island about the size of Yellowstone National Park, where much of it is dramatic and rugged, coastline dropping onto bright white, sandy beaches, with centuries old villages perched on rocky hillsides overlooking sparkling, sun drenched turquoise waters. And isn't it actually Italian? Well yes and no. Corsica actually sits kind of right beneath the border of both Italy and France in the Mediterranean. But the island itself kind of looks Italian. The architecture feels Italian, the food tastes Italian. They even have their own language, Corsu, which definitely sounds closer to Italian than French or Roman. Corsica was basically Italian for hundreds of years, but actually back then Italy wasn't even Italian. The area was still considered the unamalgamated affiliated Republic of Genoa, or it was until the Corsicans threw an eviction party in seventeen twenty nine. Genoa still kind of owned it, so to speak, even if they couldn't step onto it without having their feet blown off. But around this time they were hurting for cash, so long story short, they effectively sold Corsica to France. The French took over, and it has been weird ever since. Where to even begin with all this? It's a longer story than you might think. In its history, Corsica has managed to gain independence from Rome, France, and Italy. They got Rome out of their hair around the year four seventy six when their empire collapsed, so that was easy. Then they had to get rid of Italy toward Genoa, and that happened around seventeen fifty five after Esquale Paoli that's a fun name, while he led a revolt that ended up with them being kicked out, which turned the island into the independent Corsican Republic until for reasons Genoa sold the keys to France, and that was in seventeen sixty nine, which was also by complete fluke. The very same year that Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica. Between seventeen ninety four and seventeen ninety six, Corsica kind of turned British for a minute. This was all during the French Reign of Terror, but after that France regained control and Corsica has been French ever since, I should probably say so far. Historically, Corsicans had their own stereotype as fiercely proud heart asses who resist authority and have a colorful pastime of family vendetta and revenge fuse. They're a little like their neighbor Sicily, but much different. Let me say it like this. There's this new thing that's been going on with French license plates where you can get a custom plate with a graphic of your hometown on it. Of course they never said it had to be your hometown. So people are purposely grabbing up Corsican plates because they believe that other people will see that, assume their Corsican and think, if I mess with that guy, my death is my own fault. So what brings us all the way to Corsica? Then well, we're not here to draw blood today. We will be taking in some football. Like we talked about In fact, we happen to have tickets for the semi final men in the Coup de France or the French Cup, which will be held between SC Sports Club Bastia and the Olympique de Marseilles. For anyone unsure, this is the greatest single elimination cup competition in French football. It's like the World Cup if every team was French. It's organized by the French Football Federation and it's open to all football clubs, pro and amateur, and even clubs based in overseas territories like Corsica. It sounds like a French battle royale and it has been going strong since nineteen seventeen. One of the names I just threw out was SC Bastia. It has been rooted in the identity and culture of Corsica for more than one hundred and twenty years. They say it's famous for punching above its weight class, most notably during a very famous and beloved appearance at the final of the U Cup in nineteen seventy eight. For comparative scale, imagine the Amarillo sad poodles, Hey Texas making an appearance at the American MLB World Series. Bostil is known for its fiercely loyal supporters. They call this club Ileone di Furiani, referring to the Furiani district where their stadium is located. The fans are called Urcini for the Blues, after the club's traditional blue color, and we will be joining them today as they kick off against the Olympique de Marseilles, one of the most storied and passionately supported football clubs in all of France. They were the nineteen ninety six Chicago Bulls of French soccer. They were founded all the way back in eighteen ninety nine and they are the only French club to ever win the UEFA Champions League final, and understandably they have their own fiercely loyal fans, so if we crack open the sports page here. At this time, Bastia were in League two and had made their way to the semifinals by defeating feesche La Chatel won nothing to lose two nothing, OGC Nice one nothing before beating as Nancy Lorraine on penalty kicks in the quarterfinals. Marseille, on the other hand, had won League one the previous season and after defeating Bordeaux one zero, FC Eastras two to one, Valenciennes two zero and SM. Kaine three to one. They were on their way to Corsica for the semi final and I just said a lot of things you've never heard before. But fear not, there is no test at the end. So French people they liked football, huh okay. Well, the Staud de France holds over eighty thousand people, which makes it the largest stadium in France and puts it in the top ten across all of Europe. The Staud de France was built to host the nineteen ninety eight FIFA World Cup and thanks to absolute legend Zennidine Zadan, it's where they won their very first World Cup. So yeah, the French adore football. But we're not going to be watching anything in France today. We will be watching the semifinal match at the armand Cesari Stadium in Fioriani, near Bostia on Corsica. Furiani is a suburb of Bostia, just a handful of kilometers south of the city in the northeast, right by the coast, squeezed in between the dark green mountains and the bright blue sea. Think of armand Sesari as Bostia HQ. But some simply call it Furiani. Bostia was basically twenty three and eleven for the season, with fifty six goals on their last thirty four games, and if you know soccer, that's impressive. Then the semi final qualifiers were announced and Bostia learns they are going to be hosting the most glamorous team in all of France on creable. Bostia were just Division two underdogs, like we said, while Marseilles meanwhile, was the best team in France. So as you can imagine, the whole island was like one. Please. This was a once in a generation competition and the board of Bostia wanted to take advantage of it. They'd already developed these dollar sign shaped cataracts in their eyes after the more recent quarterfinal match against Nancy. Again, the town not the person, so they took a look and they couldn't figure out a way to make people smaller, and no one wanted to be stacked horizontally, so they were going to have to increase the number of seats at the stadium, and Fieriani Stadium entered its big Girl summer by stacking on a whack of extra seating. If you don't know what measurement of whack is It's a lot. Fieriani opened back in October of nineteen thirty two, making it almost sixty years old at the time of our story. It was pretty modest, but it grew and expanded over the decades into I was going to say, a modern masterpiece of design and architecture, but the reality was it was old. It had a reputation as being patched together and maybe even a little dilapidated. But I do not want you to think of it as old. I want you to think of it as well loved. The visitors lineup was going to be full of celebrity names like Didierre des Champ and Chris Waddle and Jean Pierre Papin. So football fever was island wide. The number of eager bombs way out numbered the number of available seats, so the plan was to tear down one of the existing stands that really only held about seven hundred and fifty people and replace it with a scaffolding like grandstand with a capacity of at least ninety three hundred behind the north goal, although it's most commonly quoted at a flat ten thousand. This would increase attendance by about fifty percent. The overall capacity would rise from about eighty seven hundred and fifty to nearly eighteen thousand, and that sounds crazy, correct, But back during the famous nineteen seventy eight final match of the UEFA Cup, they managed to squeeze as many as fifteen thousand fans into the existing stands. So local authorities were all get some and approve the project with a hardy thumbs up, and almost immediately overnight on April the twenty fourth, a work crew crept in as quietly as you can in bulldozers and demolish the older stands to get things going. People thought they didn't have permits or we were just being sneaky, but actually the match was in only ten days, which is not a lot of time, and a grand stand for ten thousand people is no small feet, so yeah, they hit that ground running. Once the space was cleared, the club contracted a company to build the new temporary stands, but they pulled out. They said this was one of those situations where you could have it fast and safe but not cheap, or you could have it safe and cheap but not fast, or you could have it cheap and fast but not safe. There simply wasn't enough time realistically, but city staff were motivated and they found themselves a company called Subtribune that claimed that they could build the metallic structure fast and kind of cheap, no comment on safety, and not just that. There was this other kind of hurdle presented which any company would have to have a hard time overcoming. There was a strike at the port of Marseilles. It's the one crucial entry point for all the necessary materials to the island, and it is my understanding that you cannot have a proper French story without someone going on strike, and in this case it was the port workers. Now, normally that would be a pretty big problem, considering they've got less than a week to finish a job that barely started on their shopping list. But not to worry, Subtribune is on the ball and assures everyone that they have everything they need lying around somewhere. So construction resumes pot a problem. So to recap Subtribune promised that they would be fast and do the job in ten days. They promised to be cheap. They did it for about one million francs, which is about what two hundred and sixty thousand euros in today's money, but again nothing about safety. The construction of the actual grandstands began on the twenty eighth of April, and at any construction site, when you see a bunch of people with white hard hats, those are inspectors. And on this same day a safety commission was sent to inspect the bill site. It was a legal obligation for any site designed to host public events, and it's usually very stringent. Following that inspection, all the club had to do was forward their positive review from the safety commission to the Federescient France a d Football. Those are the people that organize and regulate everything that has to do with soccer across France, so they were on their way. When the club first started selling tickets, people immediately noticed two things. First, by law, to prevent fraud and scalping, tickets have to have their original purchase price clearly printed on them. They do this to prevent things like ticket prices blowing up seventy five percent between games for example. I'm not saying Bastia was being corrupt. I'm only suggesting they were maybe acting a little shady or greedy. I don't know, white shoes all the while construction continued on the stands, and by May the fourth, the day before the match, Yeah, nope, they're not ready yet. Sud Tribune is on the ball and assures everyone they have everything they need lying around somewhere, so construction resumes pot a problem. So to recap, sud Tribune promised they would do this fast, in just ten days. They promised to do it cheap. They did it for about one million francs that's about two hundred and sixty thousand euros in today's money, but again nothing about safety. The people across the island could not be more excited, and when the club first started selling tickets, people notice something off. By law, to prevent fraud or scalping, tickets have to have their original purchase price printed clearly on though, which these ones did not, and they normally do that to prevent things like let's say, the ticket price blowing up seventy five percent from the last one, which these ones did. I'm not saying the Board of Bostia was being corrupt. I'm only suggesting they were maybe acting a little shady or greedy or both. I mean, why choose all the while construction continued on day and night on the stands, and by the fourth of May, the day before this once in a lifetime match, Yeah no, they're not ready yet. Maybe come back tomorrow on their heels. Another safety commission was sent to inspect the site, and they weren't exactly blown away. They used words like very insufficient, but who could hear that over all the construction equipment. And then on the morning of May the fifth, nineteen ninety two, the day of the big game, people across the island awoke saying, oh shit, it's here. The day of this colossal match was finally here. All roads leading to Furiani were packed with supporters, shouting and singing and chanting and waving flags and blasting car horns. Thousands of fans eagerly made their way to the new and improved stadium to bask in the glory of this historic matchup. When they were met with construction equipment. Yeah no, sorry, still working on it, but shouldn't be too much longer. Obviously, these are some stressed out circumstances for everyone involved. And then right on queue, because I think they may have shared a cab together. The final safety commission inspectors arrived. They too were not exactly blown away by the work, but they were by the sheer volume of people already queuing into their seat yats. Technically, the prefect of the region was supposed to have signed an official approval before anything opened. The Prefect for this area was Robert Hubert Grose, who had only been on the job for about ten weeks, and nobody knew where he was. He was probably somewhere in the stands, lost in a sea of faces. And cell phones back then were brick shaped and the size of a thermis and as expensive as several thousand thermiss so he probably wasn't carrying one. Now you will be happy to know that in his absence there was another civil servant that could be designated as the President of the Safety Commission just long enough to fulfill the duty. But no one knew where this guy was either. He was probably somewhere in the stands. And this guy couldn't afford a ten pound cell phone either, so nobody signed anything before supporters started pouring in, thousands of fans, clapping and shouting seats, seats, seats the whole time. Oh and I can tell you that prefect. Turns out he wasn't in the stands. He was off on official state business, welcoming Bernard Tappy and Emil Zugarelli to Corsica. Zuccarelli was, of course, the mayor of Bostia. Tappi was almost a folk hero in parts of France. This guy was a super successful businessman, politician, football club owner, occasional actor, singer, TV host and generally sexy guy. He was also the Minister de la Ville, which is basically minister of city affairs. But do not ask me what this ministry does. To all appearances, it serves no purpose. It may be one of those jobs where well suited gentleman sealed envelopes across tables at each other. If you follow my meaning, I should also say Tappy wasn't just the minister of whatever. He was also the eighty percent majority shareholder of a little company called Adidas. Maybe you heard of it. Oh, and he also owned the aforementioned Olympique de Marseilles. And you might find yourself thinking, isn't it weird to have all these conflicting interests? And didn't I already tell you to fermel LaBouche, have a glass of wine and calm yourself. Here in France, it is perfectly fine for politicians to have all kinds of conflicting interests, maybe even slide a few envelopes around from time to time. It's not like he was eating babies or anything. The match today is scheduled for an eight thirty pm kickoff. There was a carnival atmosphere of nervous excitement and Corsica and Pride all of France would be watching. And the relationship between Corsica and mainland France is complicated. Allow me to try to explain Corsicans see themselves as Corsican first, French second, or French not at all. It has a real keep Corsica Corsican kind of an energy to it. And I said, again, for reasons where to begin. Having been ruled by the Romans and then the Genoese and then the French, all of that gave them a pretty deep us versus them mentality around outsiders. So yeah, there have been nationalists or separatist movements for decades, you know, bombings, political assassinations, that kind of stuff. And I don't want to get into how contentious it all is, but I will say that the most well known of all the groups is the National Lib Front of Corsica, which later split into the FLNC Canal Habitual and the Canal History. All you need to know is that they are both at war with each other and France in general. Like I said, it's complicated, but this isn't a politics podcast, so let's get back to soccer. In most places, a soccer club represents the pride of the city on its jersey, but here Corsican soccer teams kind of represent the whole idea of Corsica. This is a small place, only three hundred and fifty thousand people live here, and yet they have been home to multiple soccer teams that have competed at the highest levels against much larger mainland French teams. Bastia was not a giant club, but hosting powerhouse Olympic to Marseilles in the French Cup semi final felt extraordinary. Marseilles was arguably the biggest team in France at the time, and today here the crowd were on their feet with excitement. Oh and what about those new stands. These new stands made up the north side of the stadium. Like we said, try to imagine terraced metal row seating about three hundred feet or one thousand meters across, so about eighteen Dodge caravans. And on that I had an out of continent listener point out that they had no idea what a Dodge caravan was. That's cool. Minivans never took off outside of North America, so let me help out. If you're familiar with a Volkswagen transporter, it's pretty close to that. About five meters long and about two meters wide. So the stands were about forty rows deep and as wide as eighteen VW transporters parked bumper to bumper. The nose bleedy is seats were as high as sixty feet or eighteen meters off the ground, and those stands were filled to capacity. The game hadn't even started yet, but everyone was standing and applauding and singing and chanting and blowing whistles and setting off flares and waving blue and white flags. The crowds bounce and the stands move, but most dismiss it out of hand. It was all modular sections of metal framework bolted together on top of a forest of steel tubing and joints, and propped up with wooden blocks and shims. The way it works is vertical steel tubes transmit the weight of the whole thing downward, and horizontal tubes connect the sections together. And then there's all this diagonal cross bracing, and that's there to prevent the whole thing from swaying or folding like a ladder. And with all that noise and all that weight, it could be very hard to detective anything had been shifting under your feet. That said, some fans did describe being on the stands as a little like being on a rocking boat. Others described it like it was vibrating, and it kind of made the stadium announcers nervous, I mean nervous enough to ask fans if they could just chill out with the stomping and the bouncing, But the match was so close to the beginning they might as well have been asking them in Sudin bees. No one was worried, though the stands had been swaying and vibrating for hours, I mean had been at a twenty three pm with players warming up on the pitch and television cameras already broadcasting live sharp metallic sounds like cracking or steal under extreme stress first from beneath the stands, before section started moving unnaturally. Imagine thousands of people reacting as one side begins thinking, a fraction of a second of confusion, and all of that celebration turned into something else. People instinctively grabbed for railings and seats and neighbors faces. As the sporting structure buckled, the upper terrace began to fail. The top rows pitched downward, forcing people to slide over each other. As the rows became steep ramps, entire sections of seating detached and dropped, crushing those lower down. And this was made worse by the other spectators now falling on top of them, only adding to the weight and the disorientation and the chaos. They became trapped within the collapsing geometry of the stands themselves. The TV cameras caught the unreal sight as a wave moved through the stands and hundreds disappeared into a tangled mass. Rose compressed, and steel beams folded and scissored and bent over all around them. Others fell the full height from the stands to the awaiting concrete below. The rest of the stadium fell into shock, trying to understand what they had just seen. But all that's done. Silence did not last long, spectators and emergency workers in attendance, even players immediately ran selflessly towards the scene, all helping to fight their way through the absolute haystack of metal poles, working feverishly to pull away debris and free people from the chaos. And what they found was not enviable. So you decided to pause the show, go visit your favorite podcaster's hometown, and lo and behold, you end up buying tickets to watch a World Cup event at BMO Field in Toronto. While you're here. Then you start to notice the half dozen parallels between these stands here and the ones that you were just hearing about and wished you had finished the episode. One thing leads to another, and you find yourself being held over the parking lot by a metal pull through your abdomen. Would you know what to do? I'm guessing not. Most people wouldn't, which is why for the next few minutes we are going to talk about preventing things from getting worse and buying the time needed until people with sirens and years of training arrive. I'd like to make clear this is not about heroics. This is purely about survival. Penetrating abdominal trauma is no joke. The most important thing in a situation like this is not to remove anything. Technically, the most important thing is calling emergency services, and when you do try to be specific someone who says penetrating abdominal injury gets a lot more attention, and then get back to not removing anything. You have no idea what inside is going to rearrange. If that pipe is removed, there's a fair chance it could be slowly bleeding that you're not even aware of. In principle, you'd be better off staing incredibly still, unless fire or electricity or panicky people make staying put impossible, in which case you want to wrap anything you can find, clothing, towels, bandages around the object's entry and exit points, and don't be afraid to apply gentle pressure to make it more stable. It's important to avoid sudden twisting or pulling around an impaled object, and I shouldn't have to tell you not to push it deeper. If the victim is looking pale or sweaty or weak or confused and breathing rapidly, they're probably in shock. And shock means you don't have enough oxygen rich blood getting where it needs to go, and that's not a good thing. Help them stay as still and comfortable as possible, keep them warm, give them your coat and blanket, and try to keep them talking by reassuring them that they're in good hands and everything's going to be okay. If the police can lie during an investigation, then surely you can lie during an unlicensed amateur rescue operation and don't feel bad. You're doing it for a good reason. If you give them any reason to panic, that's going to burn the kind of energy that they may not have to spare. It's going to be important that you pay attention to how they're doing. Are they becoming less alert? Are they breathing any differently? Are they making any less sense? These are the kind of details that really matter, at least to the people in the ambulances racing towards you, because you phone them right away. Now, what if the victim were speared and that object is actually holding them off the ground. The bad news is everything gets more complicated, But the good news is they can probably see their car from there. Before you start thinking about cutting or lowering or moving anything, your priority needs to be physically supporting the victim, stabilizing the object they're impaled by second and moving them only as a last resort. La pipe may be the only thing preventing a sudden fall or catastrophic internal bleeding. Like I said, so you want to get creative and support their full weight in any way you can. Life and death hangs in the balance. Literally, think ladders, platforms, straps, blankets, multiple people, human pyramiding to take the weight whatever safely prevents their body from dropping or rotating. And if staying there is not an option, and the only way you're going to be able to rescue them is by actually cutting the pipe. You're going to want to cut it, leaving as much of it is possible so that the hospital has more to play with. And I'm not saying that to sound like a dick. It's actually helpful. And our goal here is not to become an emergency room doctor in the middle of a parking lot. The goal is avoiding making things worse. There were only two hospitals on the whole island, and more than twenty three hundred people had been injured in a single event. Once patients started it squeezing out of the main floor windows under pressure like paste, aircraft were brought in to transport the severely injured to Marseilles and Nice. In mainland France, the official death toll is usually given as eighteen dead, although sometime later there was a nineteenth victim who died from their injuries. So what happened Bostia wanted to increase capacity to cash in on demand for the semi final against Marseilles. They murdered the old Terror seating and replaced it with a temporary structure almost fifteen times larger. And they did it all in record time, which is not entirely accurate, considering people were already in the stands before. It still wasn't fully did tack onto that, not having actual approvals for the work, not having the work signed off on, warnings from inspectors and potential missing pieces, and the kind of quality worksmanship and attention to detail you only get from people you hired at the last minute. Such Tribunes workers were still tightening bolts as the players took to the field, and I mean, that's not great. But no matter what, there was not one living person anywhere on the island who wanted to be known for calling for the cancelation of the biggest game of the year. Telling ten thousand the people it would be safer if they just went home. The fact that the stadium announcers were asking fans not to stomp or jiggle too hard because of the instability should have told you everything you needed to know. And I am not victim blaming at all. I'm simply saying I'm the guy who the second I hear the tap on a microphone and someone says bonjour equity, I'm listening to the rest of the game from the parking lot. Investigators concluded that parts of the structure had been poorly designed, improperly stabilized, and adequately braced, and that some of the components used weren't even strong enough for the loads and stresses that were put on them. Such Tribune promised that not being able to use the doc to bring materials wasn't going to be an issue, so they just sourced lower quality tubes and then braced it all with wood chocks and cinder blocks. The anger I feel as the storyteller has me like Craig T. Nelson slapping James Karen around for cheaping out and not moving the coffins in Poltergeist. The stands were also poorly braced against horizontal forces like the kind you get when thousands of people are standing and shifting around as they cheer. You're supposed to do some math to make sure your structure has enough cross bracing and stiffness to absorb the wiggle and the jiggle. Let me break it down like this. In every structure, weight is expected to follow load paths, and you're thinking, what the hell does that bean? No problem? Picture four people carrying a heavy table. If one of them lets go, the other three instantly have to take the extra weight because the load path has changed, and if they can't absorb it, rip table. The Safety Commission should have flagged all this the day they inspected the build site. Well, it turns out that the glowing review that was handed on to the Federacion may not have been that glowing, and it may have gotten a little lost, and it may have been replaced with a much cheerier lookalike copy. In the most literal sense, Somewhere inside the stands, a critical element failing bolt snapped somewhere important, and the weight that it no longer supported shifted to other components that then also became overloaded, and the stands began to deform under its own load, as the structure began an unstoppable collapse. By the time that first major element failed, the disaster was already irreversible. Thousands of the injured described being crushed and falling, and then the entrapmant of being buried under layers of metal, encrushed by thousands of other spectators. Every local and government system had bent over backwards to make this entire match happened, and in this case that meant permitting processes were turfed, safety commissions and oversight was turfed. Forged papers were accepted, and the construction was incomplete, and a lot of people turned a blind eye to all of it. Investigators ultimately concluded that there was no fatality of fate here. That's a quote, and it means that the collapse resulted from human decisions, ignored warnings, and motives to expand capacity as quickly as possible. Bernard Tappy's role was debated. Famous as he was, he was never seen as entirely trustworthy, but after the disaster, the whole world found out just how trustworthy he wasn't. Fast forward about a year and we run into a little something known as the Valencians. Price fixing scandal. Marseilles clawed their way to the top of the football food chain in nineteen ninety three, winning the Champions League, until it was revealed that they had bribed Valencians basically, don't play too hard, don't injure us, and just let us win without a fight. But they only made it to the third player on their bribe list before they were all Hello, police and Tappy got two years for corruption and witness tampering and ultimately he was out in six months because rich people's stuff. Then there was the Adidas Liyonnaise affair. Tappy sold his ownership of Adidas in a fairly sketchy way and ended up being charged with fraud, so much fraud in fact, that pretty Lionaise, which was at the time one of the biggest banking institutions in Europe, folded after this. Then came the Fossa affair. Long story short, Tappy used creative accounting to pay for the world's largest sailing yacht. Same for the Bocassa Chateau affair. When he was in court for it, he actually had a helicopter he'd illegally borrowed from another company he owned waiting for him on the roof rotor spinning the whole time. In less than a decade, Bernard Tappi went from celebrity sportswear owner to member of Parliament to prison inmate. Another minister tied to the scandal was Pierre Beregouvois. Although most people called him Prime Minister Beregauvois, he wasn't accused in any of the scandals, but he was the head honcho in charge at the time and surrounded by them, and the stink from that splash put a bullet in his career. I do not want to make light of anything when I tell you, but the last thing he ever did was asked to borrow his bodyguard's handgun. It was known that he quietly suffered from depression, and all of the scandals and public pressure was just too much for him. Him to bear responsibility for the disaster was smeared across organizers, engineers, officials, inspectors and even football authorities. In total, eighteen people were charged, but only thirteen were sent to trial. Jean Marie Bauimant, director of such Abune, was the only defendant to speak up and acknowledge any kind of responsibility and he received two years in prison. Michael Lorenzi was VP of SC Bastia and he also received two years for falsifying those approval documents I told you about, but he only served ten months. The head of the technical inspection firm got eighteen months. Members of the Corsican Football League executive committee got between twelve and eighteen months too. Even the president of the French Cup and the director general of the French Football Federation were charged. This investigation was no mass I just bleeped marred. But meanwhile others that were involved were treated different. The president of SC Bastia at the time of the events was a man named Jean Francois Philippe. He didn't get any jail time. He was a member of the FLNC Canal Historique, remember those guys. And I am not saying there's anything offhanded or corrupt about that. But he was shot at a lot like that thing where a whole lot of people get off a bus and you stand in front of your house and just blast away at it. Well, that happened after Furiani. His car started exploding, then his campaign headquarters exploded, and I don't know if that has anything to do with him. Supposed to be testifying in the whole Furiani affair, but it's hard to speak with your LAYNX and lungs full of lead. And that's exactly what happened to him. The semi final between Bostia and Marseilles, they just canceled it permanently, just never rescheduled. Both sides did not want to finish, which in the context of the sport was a big deal. And then the government doubled down on it by making a law which effectively established made the fifth as a day without professional domestic football. To honor the victims, the official death toll was given as eighteen and another two thousand, three hundred and fifty seven were injured. For comparison, two thousand, seven hundred and fifty three people died at the World Trade Center. There were only two more famous incidents even close to this in soccer history. In Baysel, Brussels in nineteen eighty five, thirty nine died and six hundred were injured, and at Hillsborough in Sheffield, England in nineteen eighty nine, where ninety seven died and seven hundred and sixty six were injured. Those will both be episodes one day. Rather than replay the semi final or proceed with the final. The French Football Federation went on to leave the nineteen ninety one nineteen ninety two French Cup without a winner, which is an extremely rare thing in major national cup competitions. Furiani had a fairly low body count relative to the enormous number of people who survived with injuries, and for that we are grateful. But that said to this day, based on the number of the injured, the disaster in Corsica wasn't just the greatest tragedy in the history of French football, which it was, and it wasn't just the worst mass casualty event in Corsican history, which it was. And it wasn't just the deadliest stadium structure will collapse anywhere in the world since World War Two, which it was. The Furyani Corsican Stadium disaster of nineteen ninety two remains the single worst disaster of its kind and the stadium disaster with the highest injury count in history. Now, the reason I wanted to do this episode so quickly was because of a little something called BMO Field. I believe I mentioned it earlier. It's basically the greatest soccer field in Toronto. Time really got away from me this month and when I started. This is hosting some of the North American World Cup Games. The field has twenty eight thousand seats and they have added seventeen thousand and seven hundred temporary new ones. And for the it scares the crap out of everyone I have ever talked to about it. I saw them in person when they first went up, and yikes, the top rows of the stands kind of hang in mid air. And although I'm assured that the force of the weight of all of it is being transferred into the larger structure, some of those pipes didn't make it all the way to the ground, and my brain is all nope. Well, the last time I was down there, they wrapped the entire outside of the stadium with giant banners, and I talked to an engineer and he did explain that since they wrapped it, complaints about how scary the damn thing is have dropped dramatically. Well, it took me too long to get this episode out, and now all of the games that are scheduled at BMO Field are done and the stands were immediately dismantled, and I wanted this to be a cautionary tale about history repeating, but thankfully nothing happened, and I couldn't be more happy happy about it. Listener Hydra Corvey, who calls Franz Home, told me about Furiani. More than that, he gave me a lot of information on just how skevi and weird and corrupt things got So for that, hail Hydra, and pale all my supporters, Okay, hear me. You've heard me say that donations from people like you are the only reason I've been able to do the show as often as I have. But you know, life and I recently received a kind of a multi vectored kick in the day, so the show kind of had to slide into a quick hiatus. A lot of listeners jumped at the chance to help. I sold all my books, well not all my books. I still actually have a bunch left, and I started taking pre orders for the eventual release of T shirts, actual honest to God t shirts T shirts. And if you're inclined at all to want to help, I always say that sharing the show with other people is a huge deal and something I really appreciate. But if you are inclined to help. Right now, I would ask you to share word of peepee poo poo. Let me be fully honest. I have worked on this game for months and I still laugh when I say the dumb name. When you visit the Kickstarter, the first thing you're going to see is the invitation to fall in love with something really dumb. And the thing is, I love it. I have felt so positive working on this, and every single human being who has test played this thing loved it. They couldn't say enough about it. The real charm of the thing is that the things you say are just so damn immature. And then you play it one, two, three times, and now you're being really strategic about it, and you find yourself thinking, I'm going to wreck that guy's hand and I'm going to play this enema card on him and I'm gonna make him hand over all his pooh, And then you say it out loud and you're a child, and it's great. I love it. When we first built our very first deck to start test playing this thing, my partner's ninety three year old Jamaican mother in law said, my grandson gave me diarrhea three times, and we knew we really had something, and I know normally I invite you to tag along with me on Patreon or show your support at buy me a Coffee dot com slash doomsday. So this will sound a little odd, but don't. The campaign for my little dream here is going to run between July and August, and during that time, if the generosity of spirit could be summoned up to do something kind and giving for little old me, I would ask you to share on your social media the dumbest thing that you have ever seen. If the word of mouth on this could spread, it would mean more to me. Then you could possibly imagine imagine a world where Doomsday episodes just come out every two weeks, no distractions. So to recap quickly, if you ever felt a twinge of anything for me at any point in our life, together, share the word about peepe Poopoo, which you might feel stupid just even saying the name, but it's fun and I cannot wait for you to play it. Oh, and it should be ready in time for Christmas. If you're the kind of person who buys really dumb Christmas presents, imagine shoving Pea under the tree. The power of Pooh is in your hands. Just because I've been recording this uncomfortably on my knees should not be taken as an indication that I am begging. I know I told you to stay away from my Patreon for the next little while, but I do want to take a second to welcome and thank Amanda Lawson, Sandy Blaizey, Alison Nudsen, Joe Reese, Rachel Mace, Sonia Turner, the Blood Angel, Francois Rose, and Mike al Blander for joining me on Patreon. And you know, because they did, they've actually already seen images of peepe poopoo. But I don't want you to worry about that. Please, my army, speak the gospel, help spread the joy of pooh. Now here's a tricky transition. I always ask you to also consider making a donation to Global Menic, which is a more noble cause than pp poo Poo. They're a rapid response agency of volunteers here from Canada and they're always traveling around the world to aid in the aftermath of disasters and crises, and the success of Pepe Poo Poo is really only going to benefit to families well. Global Medic has helped over six million people across eighty nine different countries. You can learn more and donate at Globalmenic dot ca, and if anyone from Global Medic is listening, you can learn more about pp poop Poo on Kickstarter, Instagram, Facebook, and maybe Twitter. Ah the next episode. You know we've been on a roll of episodes where way more people were injured than straight out killed. Well, in our next heart pounding episode, we are about to flip that script thoroughly and unforgettably. It's the Nevado del Ruiz volcano disaster of nineteen eighty five. We'll talk soon. Safety goggles off and thanks for listening. Poop sound