The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will hold a workshop to strengthen safety management at professional baseball stadiums at 2 p.m. on the 29th in the main conference room on the second floor of the Chungbuk C&V Center, with managers of 13 professional baseball stadiums nationwide in attendance.
The workshop is intended to share maintenance issues identified in a joint expert inspection conducted after a structural drop accident at NC Park Changwon Masan Stadium in March, and to discuss ways to strengthen systematic safety management for multiuse sports facilities nationwide, including professional baseball stadiums, going forward.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) will host, and facility managers of the 13 stadiums, the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation (KSPO), the Korea Authority of Land & Infrastructure Safety (KALIS), professional baseball clubs, and other related organizations are expected to attend.
The workshop will share maintenance issues identified in the joint expert inspection, the status of the detailed safety diagnosis underway for NC Park Changwon Masan Stadium, and best practices in baseball stadium safety management (Pohang Baseball Stadium, Munhak Baseball Stadium).
In the joint expert inspection of all 13 professional baseball stadiums from Aug. to Nov., nondestructive testing equipment was deployed, and related agencies and experts conducted detailed inspections together. As a result, problems were revealed such as ▲ insufficient fastening and corrosion control of attachments' anchoring parts ▲ lax safety inspections of tall structures such as light towers ▲ insufficient deployment of technical personnel dedicated to facility maintenance ▲ inadequate budget investment for repair and reinforcement at stadiums more than 30 years after completion ▲ failure to set up danger zones in places where detachment of attachments could cause major damage.
To correct these issues, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will institutionalize special inspections with expert participation by the managers before the professional baseball season opener and after the season ends, include them among the targets of the annual intensive safety inspections, and strengthen checks on the status of facility safety management.
In particular, together with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, special inspections will be carried out from late Feb. to early Mar. next year to confirm follow-up actions on previously identified issues and to check for additional risk factors, securing the safety of facilities for the season opener.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will prepare a standard contract between facility managers and professional baseball clubs to clarify the authority and responsibility for safety management, such as safety inspections and repair and reinforcement. It will also revise the detailed guidelines for facility safety inspections to specify the scope of inspections for attachments and will supplement the in-stadium attachments self-inspection manual by reflecting the results of the joint expert inspections.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) plan to ensure systematic safety inspections are carried out not only for baseball stadiums but also for other multiuse sports facilities such as soccer stadiums, using the strengthened safety inspection guidelines and manuals.
Kim Tae-byeong, director-general for technology and safety policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), said, "Through this workshop, we will further strengthen safety management for multiuse sports facilities such as baseball and soccer stadiums so that spectators of professional sports can enjoy games more safely."