Description

The Luzhniki disaster was a deadly crowd crush that took place at the Grand Sports Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in Moscow during the 1982–83 UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem on 20 October 1982. According to the official enquiry, 66 FC Spartak Moscow fans, mostly adolescents, died in the crush, which made it Russia's worst sporting disaster. The number of fatalities in this crush was not officially revealed until seven years later, in 1989. Until then, this figure varied in press reports from 3 to 340 fatalities. The circumstances of this disaster are similar to those of the second Ibrox disaster in Scotland.