Atletico trying to raise awareness of fans with disabilities in Champions League game

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Atletico trying to raise awareness of fans with disabilities in Champions League game

2024-10-23 00:12 Last Updated At：00:21

MADRID (AP) — Atletico Madrid wants to attract a record number of spectators with disabilities to a Champions League match to raise awareness about inclusion and the need to promote better access to sport for disabled fans in venues across Europe.

Thousands of supporters with disabilities are expected at Atletico’s game against Lille at Metropolitano Stadium on Wednesday, when the club could break the record of 1,740 disabled fans set by Real Betis against Valladolid in the Spanish league last year in what UEFA called “the most inclusive match in the world.”

Atletico and its partners in the initiative, including the groups AccessibAll, Integrated Dreams and World Football Summit hope the feat will help launch a movement to improve access for disabled fans in sports venues.

“They proposed to us to do this type of match and automatically we said, 'Yes,'” Atletico chief operating officer Óscar Mayo told The Associated Press. “We are not worried about the record, it’s more about the awareness, the importance about thinking about these groups, to sensibilize all of society, and to create the awareness that, no matter what, you can enjoy these types of events.”

The match comes a few days after a report by advocacy group Level Playing Field cited difficulties for disabled fans in away stadiums across Europe, including complaints of wheelchair users having to sit alongside supporters of the home team.

UEFA said it's “committed to strengthening inclusivity and accessibility at stadiums in Europe,” in line with policies and targets outlined in its Football Sustainability Strategy 2030 document. The governing body said each of its licensed clubs must have a dedicated “disabled access officer,” and noted that accessibility guidelines compiled in collaboration with AccessibAll were launched in September. The guidelines stipulate that wheelchair-user spaces shouldn't be located only in home supporter sectors.

One of the first initiatives similar came in 2015, when more than 1,000 disabled fans attended a local match in Poland, according to UEFA. Little else has been done since then, with Betis' initiative coming nearly a decade later.

“We found that it’s time to launch more than a record, it’s time to launch a movement,” AccessibAll CEO Olivier Jarosz told the AP. “When we think about disability, we tend to think that it’s people on wheelchair. And actually wheelchair users are 7%, so it’s a true minority. The majority of disabilities are non-visible. It could be visual, it could be mental, it could be cognitive. And there are many, many different challenges.”

According to European Union data, 27% of the EU population over the age of 16 had some form of disability in 2023.

Mayo said other European clubs, without specifying them, have inquired about the plan.

“We decided to do it in a UEFA match because the visibility is bigger,” Mayo said. "If this helps to invite the rest of the teams to join in similar initiatives, it would be great.”

Many times clubs don't take action because they think there are not enough fans with disabilities interested in attending their matches, so initiatives like the ones by Atletico should help show them that there is a demand for better services.

Germany is likely the country better prepared for fans with disabilities, Jarosz said, in part because it has “the best stadiums” that were used recently in the European Championship. He said the fact that clubs are traditionally owned by fans also helps, and society in general in the country is more used to servicing people with disabilities.

He said France also has improved recently, thanks to the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.

“Certainly things are changing, but they are not moving enough,” Jarosz said. “It’s very difficult to tell you on the global scale the situation, but certainly the governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA realized that this is important because it’s part of the population.”

Atletico attracted fans with disabilities for Wednesday’s match by selling tickets to them at reduced prices and working with its fan groups to spread the word. Fans have to provide their disability card or show a certificate of disability in order to make their purchase.

Mayo said Atletico prepared an “intensive operation” to host the match. There will be specific parking places reserved for supporters with disabilities, and employees dedicated exclusively to help them.

Atletico’s 70,000-capacity stadium is one of the newest and most modern ones in Europe and is considered to be fully equipped to welcome fans with disabilities. Access to and from the stadium in the Spanish capital is also considered to be adequate.

There will be activities before the match at Metropolitano, with exhibitions of wheelchair soccer and stands with information about different types of disabilities. Actors from the Spanish hit movie “Campeones,” a comedy about the importance of inclusion, were set to be on hand, as were members of the Spain blind soccer team.

“These types of action help make the people aware of the importance to think of them,” Mayo said.

The Spanish government, through its inclusion ministry, was also involved in the initiative.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Israeli airstrike destroys building in Beirut as Blinken presses for Gaza cease-fire

2024-10-23 00:17 Last Updated At：00:20

BEIRUT (AP) — The Israeli military leveled a building in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday that it said housed Hezbollah “facilities,” sending smoke and debris into the air a few hundred meters (yards) from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged the Israeli prime minister's house.

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel issued an evacuation warning for two buildings in the area that it said were used by Hezbollah. The Hezbollah press conference nearby was cut short, and an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a missile arching towards the building moments before it was destroyed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the Saturday attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in the coastal town of Caesarea. He hinted that Hezbollah might attempt future strikes on Netanyahu's home. Israel has said neither the prime minister nor his wife were home at the time of the attack.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Netanyahu as part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. After last week's killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Blinken is trying to revive efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, but so far both Israel and Hamas appear to be digging in.

Netanyahu called the meeting with Blinken “friendly and productive.”

Blinken landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.

An Israeli airstrike late Monday in Beirut night destroyed several buildings across the street from the country’s largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said that it hadn’t targeted the hospital itself.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 63 people have been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,546.

Associated Press reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital’s pharmacy and dialysis center, which was full of patients at the time.

Staff at another Beirut hospital feared it would be targeted after Israel alleged that Hezbollah had stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in its basement, without providing evidence.

The director of the Sahel General Hospital denied the allegations and invited journalists to visit the hospital and its two underground floors on Tuesday. AP reporters saw no sign of militants or anything out of the ordinary.

The few remaining patients had been evacuated after the Israeli military's announcement the night before. The rest had left earlier because of repeated airstrikes in the surrounding neighborhood.

“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” hospital director Mazen Alame said. “There is nothing under the hospital.”

Many in Lebanon fear Israel could target its hospitals in the same way it has raided medical facilities across Gaza. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, allegations denied by medical staff.

The U.S. State Department said ahead of Blinken's visit that he would focus on ending the war in Gaza, securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and alleviating the suffering of Palestinian civilians. His meeting Tuesday with Netanyahu stretched for more two hours. He is also expected to meet with President Isaac Herzog, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken underscored to Netanyahu the need for a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, something that Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made clear in a letter to Israeli officials last week. He also stressed the importance of ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

But both Israel and Hamas accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands over the summer, and the talks ground to a halt in August. Hamas says its demands haven't changed following the killing of Sinwar.

Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon earlier this month in response to near daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel is expected to strike Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — in response to its ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.

Blinken will also visit a number of Arab countries, likely to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been crisscrossing the region in recent days to try and build support before Israel’s threatened retaliatory strike. Speaking in Kuwait on Tuesday, he said that Gulf Arab countries had assured him that they wouldn't allow their territory to be used for any Israeli strike.

The Arab Gulf countries haven't publicly offered such assurances.

Gulf Arab nations like the UAE and Qatar host major military installations, and there are concerns that an all-out regional war could draw them in. Iran has repeatedly vowed to respond to any Israeli strike.

The U.S. has also tried to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, but those efforts fell apart as tensions spiked last month with a series of Israeli strikes that killed the militant group’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders.

Israel is waging another major operation in the already devastated northern region of Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the last two weeks, according to local health authorities.

In Lebanon, Israel has carried out waves of heavy airstrikes across southern Beirut and the country’s south and east, areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, including some that have reached the country’s populous center. Hezbollah began attacking Israel the day after Hamas' deadly raid that sparked the war in Gaza.

Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Around 100 of the captives are still held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded tens of thousands, according to local health authorities, who don't say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. It has also caused major devastation across the territory and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million.

Sarah El Deeb reported from Beirut. Kareem Chehayeb, Sally Abou AlJoud and Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war