For a few weeks in 1998, guests at Chateau de Pizay had an extra rule to follow. The 11th-century estate, deep in French wine country, was serving as the US team’s World Cup base and players received instructions that went beyond how to navigate their way out of Group F. Specifically? Don’t venture into the tree line behind the chateau.
‘They told us there’s an [army] regiment sleeping there – as long as we’re at the World Cup,’ ex-USA striker Brian McBride recalls. ‘We just thought: “Oh well, we’re really secure,”‘ McBride tells the Daily Mail.
It wasn’t until years later that McBride heard something about a World Cup security threat. ‘We didn’t know exactly what it was,’ the 53-year-old says. He’s not alone.
Even now, nearly three decades on, most people know only fragments of the truth. Some players remained oblivious until the Daily Mail peeled back the curtain for them on the Al-Qaeda terror plot that nearly caused bloodshed on the pitch and sought to cause a ‘nuclear holocaust to rival Chernobyl’ in western Europe.
It was masterminded by Osama Bin Laden and came perilously close to going as planned. His targets? The England team, the USA team, the US Embassy in Paris, the US consulate in Marseille… and a $4.1billion nuclear power plant in western France. ‘I had no clue’, ex-USA defender Marcelo Balboa says.
The plan, outlined in a little-known 2002 book, ‘Terror on the Pitch,’ involved terrorists from Algeria’s Al-Qaeda-affiliated Armed Islamic Group (GIA), sleeper cells and a series of coordinated attacks planned for June 15, 1998:
David Beckham was among the targets of Osama Bin Laden’s 1998 World Cup plot
The USA team including Brian McBride, left, stayed at Chateau de Pizay during the tournament
- Three terrorists would pose as workers at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome. During England’s game against Tunisia, they would storm the pitch and stands with weapons. One would blow himself up next to goalkeeper David Seaman. They would execute striker Alan Shearer and blow up the England substitutes’ bench, where rising stars Michael Owen and David Beckham were sitting. They would hurl grenades and fire into the crowd, hoping to spark a deadly stampede.
- The US consulate in the heart of Marseille, where thousands of fans were gathered, would be attacked amid panic after the larger assault in the Stade Velodrome.
- Nearly 500 miles north, the USA would be preparing to face Germany in Paris. While chaos unfolded in Marseille, jihadists would stage an ambush, storming the USMNT’s hotel near the Eiffel Tower or attacking the team’s coach on its way to the stadium.
- Nearby, others would attack the US Embassy with guns and a bomb disguised in a ‘small truck for selling sweets’.
- In Poitiers, a terror cell would hijack a commercial passenger jet and crash it into the Civaux Nuclear Power Plant, aiming to cause a catastrophic radioactive meltdown. Author Adam Robinson describes the goal of the chilling 9/11-style plot as being a ‘nuclear holocaust to rival Chernobyl’ in western Europe.
Remarkably, Bin Laden appears to have personally identified the targets. The Al-Qaeda leader was a big soccer fan, long rumored to support Arsenal after he attended several matches while in London in 1994. He compiled a list of players to keep an eye on before the 1998 World Cup.
They included Arsenal goalkeeper Seaman, Shearer and two burgeoning superstars already on the path to global fame. ‘His attention has also been drawn to two younger players who are becoming well known, David Beckham and Michael Owen,’ according to a letter between his disciples dated December 1997.
‘The Sheikh [Bin Laden] says 500million people will be watching [England vs. Tunisia] on television,’ the letter continues. ‘It is therefore vital that all goes to plan.’
His plot was foiled with just weeks to spare – thanks, it’s believed, to a double agent and mammoth police operation.
Bin Laden remained out of reach, however, and just 53 days after England-Tunisia, jihadists detonated bombs outside the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Those attacks killed more than 220 people and marked a crucial turning point in Al-Qaeda’s escalating war on Washington, which would culminate in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
England manager Glenn Hoddle with Michael Owen during the World Cup match against Tunisia at Stade Velodrome in Marseille. Owen, 18, made a substitute appearance from the bench, which Bin Laden wanted to blow up
Bin Laden, a soccer fan, appears to have personally identified the targets
Beckham was a 23-year-old on his way to global stardom in 1998
In Poitiers, a terror cell would hijack a flight and fly into the Civaux Nuclear Power Plant
But Bin Laden’s World Cup massacre never came to pass and the masterplan has never seeped into the public consciousness, either.
Alan Rothenberg, president of the US Soccer Federation in 1998, tells the Daily Mail: ‘We knew nothing.’ As for England? Daily Mail columnist Owen, seemingly singled out by Bin Laden, had no knowledge of the plot whatsoever and was alarmed to learn about it last week. So was midfielder Darren Anderton. ‘Bloody hell,’ he says. ‘That’s nuts.’
Manager Glenn Hoddle was informed ‘years later’ about a plan to blow up England’s bench. Team security had alerted some England officials to ‘the possibility of a major security problem,’ it was claimed. But not the specifics.
They are outlined in chilling, barely believable detail in ‘Terror on the Pitch.’ It is not the only tale of security scares – even from that year.
‘We went and played Belgium [in a friendly] before the ’98 World Cup,’ Balboa recalls. ‘We were told that a few days before, they raided an apartment building and they said [the suspects] had plans to steal or kidnap the US bus.’
In 2002, meanwhile, the USA’s World Cup base in South Korea was the scene of yet more concern involving the State Department, a beeping computer and an emergency evacuation.
This summer, as America co-hosts the World Cup with conflict raging in the Middle East, warnings abound that Iranian sleeper cells could be awoken. ‘This would be an incredible opportunity for [them] to attack,’ claimed Bill Rathburn, the man who ran security at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where a bomb killed one person and injured more than 100 others.
Two years later, on the other side of the world, the damage could have been far, far worse.
USA players including Marcelo Balboa (R) were told not to go past the tree line at their chateau
In May 1998, Bin Laden held a press conference in Pakistan and declared war on ‘infidels’
A terrorist planned to storm the pitch and blow himself up next to England and Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman
In May 1998, Bin Laden held a press conference in Pakistan. He declared war on ‘infidels’ and suggested operations could begin ‘within weeks.’
Sleeper cells evade suspicion by living normal, quiet lives. And ahead of the 1998 World Cup, according to ‘Terror on the Pitch,’ a group of jihadists embedded themselves in Marseille’s soccer scene.
They followed the city’s storied team – Olympique de Marseille – and scouted out security around the US consulate. Eventually, it seems, they were hired to work at Stade-Velodrome during the World Cup.
‘They have taken care to learn of the men named by the Sheikh,’ a letter says. They were particularly focused on Beckham. As for the consulate? That was considered an ‘easy target.’ The authorities, meanwhile, had another security headache: possible violence between England and Tunisia fans and an upcoming, highly charged clash between the USA and Iran.
Shortly after England beat their Group G rivals 2-0, the USA played Germany at Parc des Princes. Details on the plot in Paris are more scarce, but Chateau de Pizay was nearly five hours from the capital and the plotters reportedly hoped McBride and co could be ‘exposed’ – either en route to the stadium or in their overnight hotel. Elsewhere in the capital, another cell targeted the US Embassy.
One operative had reportedly bought a ‘small truck for selling sweets.’ Correspondence quoted in ‘Terror on the Pitch’ claimed he would drive while fellow plotters – ‘armed with guns’ – provided ‘back-up’ to ‘ensure our victory.’
None of these attacks would have left more lasting damage than the Poitiers hijack. The Civaux Nuclear Power Plant was valued at $4.1bn and Bin Laden was reportedly told that an attack on its reactors could cause a disaster to rival Chernobyl. ‘A nuclear holocaust,’ author Adam Robinson writes. It remains unclear how effective such an attack would have been, but regardless of whether it would have caused a radioactive meltdown, it would have resulted in mass casualties and unprecedented panic.
Jihadists hatched a plan to board a flight from a nearby airport around the time England kicked off in Marseille. They would then take control and divert the plane toward the powder keg.
Three years later, Al-Qaeda used similar tactics to destroy New York’s twin towers and attack the Pentagon. Even in 1996, security chiefs were only too aware of the planes-as-weapons threat to the Atlanta Olympics. ‘One of our biggest concerns was a 9/11-kind of incident,’ recalls Rathburn.
The United States team lost to Germany in Paris, unaware of the looming safety threats
Balboa was told of another possible terror plot ahead of a friendly against Belgium in early 1998
England went on to beat Tunisia after Bin Laden’s plot was foiled with just weeks to spare
By their calculations, a plane headed to Asheville, North Carolina, ‘could deviate 22 seconds out of [its] flight pattern and be over one of the Olympic sites.’
More scary still? ‘We finally concluded there wasn’t much we could do,’ Rathburn tells the Daily Mail. Even if you intervene in 22 seconds, ‘you might do more damage if you shot it down.’
As the 1998 World Cup approached, according to ‘Terror on the Pitch,’ one of the Poitiers cell attended flight school.
‘The fools welcomed him and gave him all the necessary training knowledge, without realising that he was their enemy,’ reads a letter in the book. Fortunately, none of those classes was put into practice.
Many details of this story remain unclear, including exactly how the police first learned about Bin Laden’s plot.
According to ‘Terror on the Pitch,’ all signs point to a double agent – a notorious killer who is also suspected of providing the first tip-off.
In March 1998, during the arrest of several terrorists in Belgium, police reportedly came across explosives, guns and documents related to the World Cup. Still the authorities kept it hush.
‘I’m not surprised at all,’ Rothenberg says. ‘The last thing they really want to do, obviously, is create panic.’
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, a bomb killed one person and injured more than 100 others
Behind the scenes, police spent months connecting dots between Paris, Marseille and Poitiers.
In late May, two weeks before the World Cup kicked off, they launched what was then the ‘largest Europe-wide anti-terrorist action ever attempted’: dozens of dawn raids across France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium led to scores of arrests.
‘It was a matter of urgency,’ a French government spokesman said at the time. ‘Now we can approach the World Cup more serenely.’
Still, it seems the authorities didn’t take any chances. Shortly before the tournament kicked off, England played a final warm-up game behind closed doors. Anderton can’t recall exactly where it was.
Three decades on, after hearing about Bin Laden’s plot, he remembers there were gunmen up on the roof of the stands. ‘We just thought: “Is it normal? Are they trying to stop people from watching?” Anderton says. Now he wonders if they were there to guard against further possible terror threats. ‘It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?’
Some US players only learned about the threat before the 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea where, McBride says, State Department officials sat in on every training session. ‘One of them had a laptop,’ he recalls.
Since they had been kept in the dark four years earlier, players were understandably edgy: ‘What’s going on?’ they asked.
The official explained that he was monitoring air quality. He didn’t say why but during a pre-tournament game against Costa Rica, ‘all of a sudden the computer starts beeping,’ McBride recalls. The players fled the pitch to hide.
‘It turns out it was just the leaves being burnt that set the monitors off,’ McBride says with a laugh.
Working alongside the State Department to protect American players – just months after 9/11 – was an elite branch of Korean soldiers.
A member of the Korean SWAT police stands guard over the USA team bus in Seoul
The American team were watched by Korean soldiers and the State Department in 2002
An armed soldier and a police officer holding a metal detector stand guard outside US training
‘I think they called them the President’s Guard,’ McBride recalls. ‘These guys were machines.’ In the gym, one American player claimed he saw a guard do 100 pull-ups. They weren’t afraid to flex those muscles, either.
‘There was a time when an older couple was driving by in a van,’ McBride explains. They pulled up and waved to the US team. ‘The President’s Guard ran them off the road.’
More than two decades on, Rathburn believes there is a ‘significant threat’ of carnage this summer. As he learned, it is tough enough keeping one host city safe, let alone 16. Across three different countries.
The US government has provided nearly $1billion in funding for security across the World Cup and America 250 events. Andrew Giuliani – head of the White House’s Task Force – told the Daily Mail that his first priority is to ensure this World Cup is safe. They have been warned.
