UEFA Games To Hold Despite Threats From Terrorist Group IS
European football’s governing body, UEFA, said all fixtures scheduled for this week would go ahead despite threats from the terrorist group, Islamic State to attack all the quarter-final matches on April 9 and 10.
IS had threatened to launch an attack against the four stadiums hosting the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.
Daily Mail quoted the Al Azaim Foundation, a media outlet that is responsible for spreading messages from the Islamic State (Daesh, ISIS), to have confirmed their intentions with a poster.
The foundation, with the message, ‘Kill them all’, shared an image threatening to attack the Parc des Princes, the Santiago Bernabeu, the Metropolitan and the Emirates Stadium,
This came shortly after the ISIS-affiliated media outlet Sarh al-Khilafah announced their plan to attack the fans who were at the Allianz Arena in Munich to watch the match between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
In the matches on Tuesday, Arsenal take on Bayern Munich in London and Real Madrid host reigning European champions Manchester City.
In Wednesday’s other game, Atletico Madrid face Borussia Dortmund in the Spanish capital.
However, UEFA maintained that all matches would proceed as planned.
“UEFA is aware of alleged terrorist threats made towards this week’s UEFA Champions League matches and is closely liaising with the authorities at the respective venues,” the statement said.
“All matches are planned to go ahead as scheduled with appropriate security arrangements in place.”
Meanwhile, the Spanish government has launched an extensive security operation ahead of Manchester City’s Champions League match against Real Madrid.
The authorities in Madrid have activated all of their “alert” and “response systems”, according to reports in Spain.
Spain’s interior ministry has designed an operational deployment in which more than 2,000 National Police agents and also Civil Guard officers are involved with additional backup from Madrid’s municipal police force.
The security plan is part of the anti-terrorism measures in Spain, where the current alert level is four out of five.
Hafsoh Isiaq is a graduate of Linguistics. An avid writer committed to creative, high-quality research and news reportage. She has considerable experience in writing and reporting across a variety of platforms including print and online.
