FEA TURE —S TA DIUM TECHNOL OGY
Designed by Populous and Scott Tallon Walker, a potential hooliganism risk was averted at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium
through the Irish police’s diligence in checking pre-event Internet ‘chatter’. IMAGE: POPULOUS/SCOTTTALLON WALKER/©CHRIS GASCOIGNE
Since October 2010, I’ve been monitor-
ing the Virtual Zone to research this article. As a result, I’ve picked out my‘TopTen’ risks to explore a little further.
‘Top Ten’Risks in the Virtual Zone 1. Ticket scams and touting 2. Breach of segregation 3. Planning disorder 4. Citizen journalism 5. Social media gaffes 6. In-play betting 7. E-commerce opportunities 8. Service delivery failures 9. Technology security
10.Cyber terrorism
Thefirst risk concerns ticket scams and
touting.Increasing numbers of fans buy eventtickets over the
Internet.This puts them at risk of being
scammed.Criminals fake websites thatlook like the real thing or create bogus agencies offering tickets thatdon’t
exist.Ineither case,the crooks take people’s money —and their credit card details—but the tickets never arrive. Managing this risk is partly about fans being sensible, but it involves crime and so is quiterightly apolicematter. In the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Metropolitan Police has created a spe- cial unit to tackle ticketing
fraud.Arrests made by this unit include a man suspected of processing money for fraudulent inter- net ticketing sites,aman believed to be involved in selling stolen tickets on an auc- tion site, and awoman supposed to be running online ticket sites thatfailed to supply tickets people had paid for. In Feb- ruary2011, the London 2012 organisers announced awebsitechecker to allow
SPR IN G 20 11
ticket buyers to pasteinaURL to check if the seller was genuine. Risks twoand three areabout safety
and security. Selling ‘print at home’tickets on the Internet risks undermining segrega- tion arrangements if fans can get tickets forthe ‘wrong’
areas.Venues have to decide whether to decline entry, whether to leave spare capacity and make arrange- ments to relocate such fans, or whether to ejectthem if their presenceiscausing problems.‘Printathome’tickets can also be photocopied, creating entrance prob- lems when the barcode reader spots a
duplicate.Isaw one game wherethe access controlsystemcrashed because of duplicate tickets,causing chaos at the turnstiles. Disorder,protests,demonstrations and
even nationaluprisings areincreasingly planned and coordinatedonsocial media sites. Giving evidence to the Iraqwar inquiry in January2011, Britain’s topcivil servant, Sir Gus O’Donnell,commented:“When you look at whatishappening,aswespeak,in Egypt ... the use of the internet,the use of
Geraint John and Rod Sheard of Populous conceived the idea of the stadium as a series of
concentric zones. Zone One being the playing area; Zone Two the viewing
accommodation; Zone Three the internal concourses; Zone Four the external concourses; and
Zone Five the stadium environs. This article suggests that a Zone Six should be added for the Virtual Zone.
Twitter, the way protest movements devel- op,this is adifferentworld.Weneed to be tied in much more to that sort of world.” One of my soccer club security contacts carefully monitors Internet chatrooms to see what disorder his hooligans are plan- ning.But the problem forthe authorities is the sheer volume of chatter out there. I asked asenior policefootball intelligence source about this.Hepointedout the costs of resourcing such monitoring,the difficul- ties in validating substanceagainst noise, the legal and civil liberties implications of covert police activity and the risk of leaving electronic footprints. One example of doing this well was the
Football Association of Ireland’s (FAI) Ford CupFinal at AvivaStadium in October 2010. An GardaSíochána (the Irish police) picked up pre-eventInternet chatter by Shamrock Rovers supporters from Tallaght (the townwherethe team play) thatthey would “trash the stadium”. This heightened the risk assessmentand allowedall the partners to adjusttheir preparations to prevent the hooliganism.
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