Professional football clubs are meeting police and firefighters to discuss planning for a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Malcolm Millichap, event organiser, said there had been no specific threat but a terrorist attack at a large sporting event was a real possibility. And he urged football clubs to write a contingency plan in preparation. Mr Millichap, an emergency planning consultant for Stoke City Council, admitted it would be impossible to thoroughly check all spectators entering the ground. But he said: "What you can do is have a plan, have a contingency plan that will deal with the possible problems that could arise." Modern football grounds were designed to evacuate quickly and in the case of the Britannia stadium in Stoke, which can hold up to 28,000 people, the time set for this was eight minutes, he said. But clubs needed to prepare for the event of a chemical attack and possible contamination risks. "A dirty bomb is always a possibility but the easiest thing for a terrorist to do would be to make a sarin gas attack, as they did in Tokyo on the underground system. It’s not difficult to make such a device. It’s fairly cheap and why attack a military installation when you can attack a sports stadium?"
Given Islamists’ preference for soft civilian targets, I’d think it much more likely. |