At least 125 people died at an Indonesian football stadium when thousands of angry home fans invaded the pitch and police responded with tear gas that triggered a stampede. The tragedy on Saturday, October 1, 2022 night in the city of Malang, which also left 180 injured, was one of the world's deadliest sporting stadium disasters.

It brings back memories of some of the similar tragedies in world football, especially in the 1980s. In January 1980, a temporary four-story wooden stadium collapsed at a bullfight in Sincelejo, Colombia, killing some 200 spectators. On October 20, 1982, 66 people died in a crush of fans during a UEFA Cup match between Spartak Moscow and Haarlem, of the Netherlands, at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. On May 28, 1985, 39 people died in fan violence at the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus at Heysel Stadium in Brussels.

In March, 1988, 93 people are killed when thousands of soccer fans surged into locked stadium exits to escape a sudden hailstorm in Kathmandu, Nepal. Another 97 died and hundreds got injured on April 15, 1989, in a crush of fans at overcrowded Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England.

Veteran football fans back in India will surely remember how the sport in Kolkata was hit by violence in 1980 during a match between the two traditional rivals, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. On that ill-fated day on August 16, the local league match was organised at the Eden Gardens, primarily a cricket ground. It was an ill-tempered encounter and after a player each from both the teams were given the marching orders by the referee, violence broke out between the supporters of both the teams in the stands. The match ended goalless, but 16 youngsters lost their lives in the stampede, for which the local police cannot avoid responsibility. Football was stopped in Kolkata for the remaining season and a high level enquiry was ordered by the state government, but it did permanent damage to the status and prestige of the game in the city. Kolkata football was never the same thereafter.