World sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics are the most attended and watched sporting events in the world. Not only does the mass number of people attending these events present a unique safety issue for officials, but these sporting events are also often hosted in large, populated cities, which attracts a wide variety of criminal activity that must be planned for and dealt with. INTERPOL’s Project Stadia aims to do just that – “..create a Centre of Excellence to help our member countries in planning and executing policing and security preparations for hosting major international events.”

Since the dawn of the FIFA World Cup, the attendance seen at the varying large host cities has exponentially increased. in the 1970 Mexico World Cup, the total attendance sat at ~1.7 million people. While in the most recent 2018 Russia World Cup, attendance capped out at 3 million people, over a 200% increase from just 40 years prior.

  
The Olympics shows even more staggering statistics – the 2016 summer Olympics held in Rio was estimated to have a worldwide audience of five billion people, with millions of fans traveling from around the globe to watch the world sporting event live.

   
The biggest security risk lies in the host location’s disperse, and populated cities, which can attract a range of saftey concerns – from disorder and violence, to cyber attacks and terrorism – host cities are charged with the task of running a smooth and functional event, without putting the spectator’s and citizen’s safety in jepordy.

Established in 2012 and funded by Qatar, INTERPOL’s Project Stadia is the step toward global safety. “Stadia is a 10-year project will contribute to policing and security arrangements for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and will leave a lasting legacy for the world’s law enforcement community.”

One of the main goals of Project Stadia is to create a massive knowledge bank of all good practices in the sports and venue safety industry. They do this by gathering the top minds in this space from around the globe, and hold conferences to deliberate and gather the knowledge banks these great minds hold. Just recently, “Project Stadia and the University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) held a four-day incident management training course in Lyon, France to strengthen law enforcement and first responder standards in sport venue safety and security.”

This effort is not only valuable for gathering the best practices and information from organizations around the globe, but also offers a chance to train and hone law officials in every country in an effort to advance the standard of event safety. Through these conferences, participants are able to complete six separate training modules and earn the International Sport Safety and Security Professional Certificate, which acts as a benchmark for international sports safety standards.

 
INTERPOL’s Project Stadia is a glimpse into the future for event safety standards. In a world of event safety where we are all interconnected and live under the same practices and learnings, the state of event safety will only grow and transform for the better.