Martina Jaureguy Thousands of people were trapped in a human avalanche while trying to go inside the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami to watch the Copa América final between Argentina and Colombia on Sunday night. Many who had tickets were left waiting angrily at the gates after security failures saw people sneaking in and the stadium hitting capacity.
“It was a miracle no one died,” sports reporter Verónica Brunati told the Herald. She had a ticket to watch the final, but was left outside the stadium, squashed between security fences for hours before the game started. “I have traveled the world covering the Argentine national team for over 20 years and I have never seen anything like this.”
Videos posted online show thousands of people squashed together, desperately trying to get in. Many climb the stadium fences and even sneak in through air vents.
The game was due to start at 8 p.m. (Miami time), but with entry to the stadium hours delayed, not even half the seats were full by that time. At 7:38 p.m., the Conmebol organizing confederation announced it had closed the gates and that the game would be delayed until 8:30. “People without tickets cannot go into the stadium. Only those with tickets can enter once the gates are opened again,” they posted on X. The game finally started at 9:22 p.m.
Brunati began her reporting outside the stadium at 3 p.m. At that time, five hours before the planned kickoff time, she noticed there were already a lot of people without tickets hanging around outside the venue.
“It seemed odd to us that no-one was checking for their tickets,” she said. “There were no security posts in the vicinity of the stadium, which are common in any sports event or concert in Argentina so that people without tickets can’t get near the stadium. There were no medical posts or police officers, either.”
As kickoff drew closer, more and more people appeared. The heat was suffocating: it was over 30°C (86°F). At 5 p.m., Brunati was queueing to enter, but the gates were still closed. “That’s when the avalanches began,” Brunati said.
Football youtuber Valentín Torres Erwerle got there at 6:45 p.m. and found the gates were already closed. “There were a lot of people crowded against the gates and the VIP door,” he said. “It was chaotic, there was a lot of screaming.” He managed to get in at 8:30 p.m. thanks to people from the Argentine Football Association who went to get him and other fans.
The players’ families were waiting with the general public, but were fished out of the multitude by Conmebol reps when they told players what was happening. Torres Erwerle said he saw Argentine players Alexis MacAllister, Nicolás González and Alejandro Garnacho near the gates, trying to see where their relatives were and making phone calls.
At around 8 p.m., the gates were briefly reopened, and a flood of people rushed into the stadium. By then, stadium staff weren’t even checking whether they had tickets, and many did not. They closed them again after seeing people sneaking in over the stadium walls.
“They never opened the gate again, so people were just pushing us against it more and more,” Brunati said. Children were suffocating and people started lifting them over their heads so they could breathe. A woman fainted near Brunati and fans lifted her towards the parking lot because security wouldn’t open the gate to attend to her, the reporter said.
Security then told fans the gates would remain shut because the stadium was full. Brunati stayed until the national anthems started playing, holding out hope that she’d be able to get in. In the end, she watched the game on a giant screen outside, with thousands of fans in the same situation.
“It was dramatic. I didn’t know if I would be able to get out of there,” Brunati said. “Security and police hit people who had tickets because they thought they wanted to sneak in. They were delivering blows all around.”
“Throughout the afternoon and evening, there were numerous attempts by unruly fans without tickets to overpower security and law enforcement personnel at entry points to the stadium, putting themselves, other fans and security and stadium staff at extreme risk,” said a release published by Hard Rock Stadium. After they closed and reopened gates “strategically in an attempt to allow ticketed guests” in safely, “fans continued to engage in illegal conduct — fighting police officers, breaking down walls and barricades and vandalizing the stadium, causing significant damage to the property.”
“We understand there are disappointed ticket holders who were not able to enter the stadium after the perimeter was closed, and we will work in partnership with Conmebol to address those individual concerns,” they said, adding that they will review their security protocols and “work with law enforcement to ensure such an event never happens again,” the statement said.
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