Armand Césari Stadium disaster

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The Armand Césari Stadium disaster took place at Bastia on the French island of Corsica on 5 May 1992 when one of the terraces collapsed, killing 18 people.

On that day, Bastia were facing Olympique de Marseille for a semi-final of the 1992 French Cup. Marseille was by far the best team in France at the time, and the board of Bastia wanted to take advantage of it by adding a large-capacity stand, to increase the number of seats by 50%. Local authorities approved the project without restrictions.

Before the game, the stand collapsed, killing 18 and leaving over 2,300 injured. Since then, Armand-Césari is slowly improved and only one of the four stands of 1992 is still there. This "under construction" stadium surprised the players from Benfica in 1997, as they believed this was the training pitch. Some major improvements will finally start end of 1996, for a final capacity of 18,000.