BUCHAREST — Romania’s emergency authorities sent a RO-Alert message to every mobile phone in the country during the national football team’s 6-0 defeat by Poland in Warsaw on Friday night, advising citizens to “avoid further exposure to the second half” and to check on elderly relatives, in what officials described as a proportionate precaution.
The alert, the first ever issued for a sporting event, went out shortly after Poland’s fourth goal. It has raised questions about the threshold for a national emergency, and about whether the system will be needed again on Monday, when Romania play Sweden at home.
Friday’s result was Romania’s third defeat in three matches in Group B4 of the Nations League, after a 2-1 loss in Sweden on 25 September and a 4-2 home defeat by Bosnia and Herzegovina three days later. The team has conceded twelve goals, scored three and has no points. Gică Hagea, 61, who was appointed head coach in April for his second spell in the job, has yet to win a match.
The calls
According to the Department for Emergency Situations, the first calls about the match reached the 112 dispatch centre in Bucharest shortly after half-time, when Poland went 3-0 up through an own goal. Most callers wanted to know whether anything could be done. A man from Ploiești asked whether the army could be sent. A woman in Iași asked for the match to be “stopped, or at least paused”. Operators, who have no procedure for either request, took their details and promised to call back.
By the hour mark Romania had played more than half an hour with ten men, after a defender was sent off, and the calls had become what the department called “a pattern”. The duty officer convened the national committee for emergency situations by video link. Its criteria for a red warning are an event of high intensity, of long duration and of national extent. The committee found that all three had been met, the third by some distance, and voted unanimously. Two members asked for their votes to be recorded as “with regret”.
The message reached phones at 11:06pm, two minutes after Poland’s fourth. It read, in full: “RO-ALERT. A high-intensity event is under way in Warsaw. Avoid further exposure to the second half. Do not watch alone. Check on elderly relatives and neighbours. Follow the instructions of the authorities.”
Poland scored again four minutes later.
“Everybody’s phone went off at once,” said Ionuț Vlase, 38, a bus driver from Ploiești who was watching in a bar in Bucharest’s old town. “For a second the whole room thought it was the earthquake. Then someone read it out, and it was the football, and people were honestly relieved. A man next to me turned his chair round to face the wall. He was following the instructions of the authorities.”
The authorities
Some 2,000 Romanian supporters in the away section in Warsaw received the alert on roaming as the fifth goal went in. Several read it aloud. Most stayed to the end, which the department said was “understandable, given the price of the tickets, but not advised”.
Cristian Moldovan, a spokesman for the department, said the decision had followed standard procedure. “It is the same procedure we use for floods,” he said. “Something that has been forecast for days, which everyone hoped would not happen, arrives and covers the whole country. Our job is not to judge. Our job is to warn.”
“For a second the whole room thought it was the earthquake.”
Dr Elena Stroe, a forecaster at the National Meteorological Administration, said that the event had been “a textbook system”. “It was visible on the charts after Stockholm, it intensified over Bucharest on Monday, and on Friday it stalled over Warsaw for ninety minutes,” she said. “The only unusual thing was the alert. In my profession we would have issued an orange warning on Tuesday and nobody would have read it.”
Mr Hagea told reporters after the match that he had not seen the alert, because the players’ and staff’s phones are collected before kick-off and kept in a bag in the dressing room. He said he had watched the whole of the second half, “because it is my job”, and would not recommend it.
Răzvan Burlescu, the president of the Romanian Football Federation, welcomed the alert as “proof that the whole nation is behind the team, and is worried about it”. He said the federation had formally asked the department to send a second message before Monday’s match, reading “Go to the stadium”. The department declined, explaining that RO-Alert may only be used to keep people away from danger.
Reaction
The Polish ambassador to Romania said in a statement that Poland “did not intend to cause an emergency” and remained “a friend of the Romanian people at every level except football”. The Polish federation offered to return one of the six goals “as a gesture of friendship”. UEFA said goals were not transferable.
Robert Lavandowski, who scored three of them, said through a team spokesman that he had scored against a great many countries but had never before been the subject of a public safety notice. “He is proud of the goals,” the spokesman said. “He is less sure about the notice.”
Romania were promoted to League B after winning their League C group in the last edition of the competition. The team that finishes bottom of the group is relegated automatically. Romania host Sweden at the Arena Națională on Monday at 9:45pm, followed by Poland in Bucharest on 14 November and Bosnia and Herzegovina away three days later.
The department said it would review the alert procedure before Monday. In the meantime, a yellow warning has been issued for Bucharest, valid from 9:45pm until midnight, and residents near the stadium have been advised to secure loose objects.