27 people including Colombia’s football federation president and son arrested due to chaos at Copa America final

MIAMI GARDENS, Florida (AP) — 27 people have been arrested, including the president of Colombia’s soccer federation and his son. crowd control issues Which started in the Copa America final on Sunday Argentina and ColombiaPolice said on Monday.

Miami-Dade Police Detective Andre Martin told The Associated Press that Ramon Jesurun and his son, Ramon Jamil Jesurun, were detained and charged after the event at Hard Rock Stadium. Martin did not disclose the allegations.

Arrest records show Ramon Jamil Jesurun was charged with three counts of assault on an officer.

Colombia’s soccer federation did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment on Monday.

Ramon Jesurun, 71, has been president of the Colombian Football Federation since 2015 and vice-president of CONMEBOL, South American football’s governing body, which organizes the Copa America tournament.

In a statement released on Monday, the organization said it regretted the scene in which countless fans entered the stadium without tickets and “brought disrepute” to the event. The game was delayed for more than an hour as officials worked to control the situation, eventually deciding to let some fans in without passing through security checkpoints.

“In this situation, CONMEBOL was subject to the decisions taken by the Hard Rock Stadium authorities, in accordance with established contractual responsibilities for security operations,” the organization said. “In addition to the preparations set out in this agreement, CONMEBOL recommended to these authorities proven procedures in incidents of this magnitude, which were not taken into account.”

Hard Rock Stadium – the site of 2026 World Cup matches – said security was a shared responsibility between its stadium officials, the organization, CONCACAF (the governing body that oversees soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean) and local police.

“More than double the staff” used for a normal event were on scene Sunday, a stadium spokesperson said in a news release.

Miami-Dade Police said that more than 800 law enforcement officers were present at the match. He said that apart from the arrests, 55 people were evacuated.

It was a chaotic scene just hours before the championship match between the two South American nations was scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m.: fans forced their way in, jumped over security railings and ran past police officers and stadium attendants, While they were searching, some maniacs were seen. The people with whom they arrived.

It appears that the venue has suffered considerable damage as a result. Videos and images posted on social media showed a broken side railing of an escalator inside the stadium, with shoes, soda cans, reading glasses and items of clothing left behind. Security railings at a checkpoint at the stadium’s southwest entrance were bent as thousands of people, including crying children, crashed through them.

A Hard Rock Stadium release said stadium officials spoke with tournament organizers around 8 p.m. and decided to open the gates to ticketed and non-ticketed fans due to fear of a stampede and serious injuries. Were standing in front of. After this the gates were closed and many ticketed fans remained outside.

The stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, home of the NFL’s Dolphins, will be the site of seven World Cup matches in 2026, including a quarter-final and third-place match.

FIFA organizes the World Cup and is a separate organization from CONMEBOL. FIFA is an international federation that oversees more than 200 affiliated confederations under regional bodies such as CONMEBOL.

Ramon jesurun is also fifa council member,

FIFA did not immediately respond Monday to the AP’s request for comment on crowd control issues and how it will prevent similar problems in 2026.

Attorney Steve Edelman, a crowd control expert and vice president of the Event Safety Alliance, said Hard Rock organizers failed to understand that Sunday’s game would bring out fans eager to watch their teams, some of whom would be willing to force their way inside.

“A match between fans of two rival South American countries is as emotional as you’re going to get,” he said.

Edelman said organizers should have learned from the 2021 Euro Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium, where England fans without tickets burst inside for their team’s match with Italy. 19 police officers were injured in the melee and 53 arrests were made. In 1989, 97 people died at a major English match when fans forced their way into the stadium.

“Unfortunately, this type of aggressive supporter behavior has been seen at international football matches,” Edelman said. “This behavior is not desirable, it is not good, but it is reasonably predictable. …They needed to plan for the crowd they were likely to have, not the crowd they wanted.”

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Associated Press writers Terry Spencer, Astrid Suarez and Gisela Salomon contributed to this report.

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