PARIS ATTACKS CAUSES SPORTS SCARE & SECURITY ALERTS

After the terrorist attacks of the night of November 13, 2015 in Paris the French capital, there has been improved measures as to sport security globally.

In Trinidad, armed police officers in riot gear were called in to secure a soccer match. In Japan, officers positioned on rooftops monitored a marathon. And in Spain, a very intense security apparatus is planned for Saturday'€™s Real Madrid-Barcelona soccer showdown, including a three-layer perimeter around the famed Santiago Stadium and a doubling of the already increased number of security personnel who will, among other things, inspect f€™ans.

The terrorist attack near the Paris Stadium in France which was part of a wave of deadly violence across the city on Friday night and a bomb threat on Tuesday that canceled a soccer game in Germany have made sports officials around the world feel newly vulnerable. If the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 showed with devastating effect how a sporting event could be a target for terrorists, then the Paris attacks have forced teams and leagues to further examine security protocols for more-contained sporting events that bring tens of thousands of people together in a stadium or arena

Responses in the aftermath of the Paris attacks have varied. Matches in the top two soccer leagues in France this weekend will go on as scheduled but without fans of the visiting teams, as the police will be focused on external security and will not have the resources to properly handle the typical segregation of fans.

Basketball and hockey arenas in the United States have seen a marked rise in the number of armed guards at entrances. The top Dutch soccer league said it expected increased security at matches in its three biggest cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague).

In Madrid, where Barcelona will play Real Madrid on Saturday in one of the most-watched matches of the Spanish league season, the state secretary for security, told reporters that 1,400 private security workers would be used to reinforce a police force of at least 1,000 officers a presence that will be about double the size used at similar games in the past.

 A Spanish government delegate in Madrid, said the decision to check sandwiches was made because fans of the Portuguese club Benfica hid flares in their sandwiches to get them past security at a Champions League match against Atlentico Madrid in September.

 The University of Maryland in the United States banned backpacks this week at basketball and football games. At the Port of Spain in the Caribbean, the paramilitary presence was elevated to previously unseen levels before the soccer match that the United States and Trinidad and Tobago played on Tuesday November 17, 2015.

See the picture of Police officers on patrol outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn New York in the United States, on Tuesday for a game between the Nets and the Atlanta Hawks: