The Beautiful Game

At least 74 people have been killed in clashes between rival fans following a football match in the Egyptian city of Port Said.

Scores were injured as fans - reportedly armed with knives - invaded the pitch after a match between top-tier clubs al-Masry and al-Ahly.

Officials fear the death toll could rise further.

It is the biggest disaster in the country's football history, said the Egyptian deputy health minister.

"This is unfortunate and deeply saddening," Hesham Sheiha told state television.

Some of the dead were security officers, the Associated Press news agency quoted a morgue official as saying.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt's ruling army council, went to a airbase near Cairo to welcome back al-Ahly players who were flown back from Port Said on a military aircraft.


BBC

In a translated account of what happened:

The people attacking us were armed with batons, knives, rocks, glass, firworks and all kinds of weapons that would be used in more than football trouble.

When we saw these numbers we knew we wouldn't be able to deal with all of them; so we started running towards the hallways that take us to the doors in order to exit the stadium. These hallways should've been opened for us to leave but they were closed by the army from the outside. The area between the doors of these hallways and the main exit gates had army soldiers and we were locked in. Not even able to escape. We were besieged in the hallway and we had two choices; either die inside or outside because even if were able to make it outside the people of Port Said were waiting for us there at the main gate.