afrol News, 23 July - The Ivorian Football Federation has been slapped with $47,000 fine by FIFA following the conclusions of the inquiry into the tragedy of the stadium that killed more than 20 people in the West Africa state.

In March a stampede at Abidjan's Houphouet-Boigny Stadium during the soccer World Cup qualifying match between Côte d'Ivoire and Malawi killed 22 and injured 132.

FIFA has imposed a series of safety measures after concluding the long investigation, further announcing a donation of $96,000 to a fund set up for the families of the victims.

The new set of safety measures will be in place for the next round of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers in September, in which only 20,000 people will be allowed in the stadium.

The incident which occurred before the game began, is also said to have caused those who were already trying to squeeze into the stadium to panic, thus injuring and killing others as they tried to flee the scene.

Local news reports said although the stadium had been refurbished the numbers that pushed through to get into the stadium to watch the game were beyond the stadium’s capacity.

The tragedy followed similar incidents which have marred international matches in Africa in the last decade, with the recent one being Zambia and the death of 13 people in Zimbabwe nine years ago.

The incident occurred before the game began but the fixture was allowed to go ahead with the Ivorian team beating Malawi 5-0.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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