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| Opinion |
| Fam must act on hooliganism now |
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by
Leonard Sharra, 20 October 2005
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09:38:08
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After experiencing smooth runs both in the Super League and early stages of the Fam Cup competition, violence once again reared its ugly head in Lilongwe during quarterfinal matches of the latter involving Civo United and Dwangwa United and the match between Silver Strikers and Admarc Tigers on Sunday.
At Civo Stadium, fans believed to be sympathisers of Silver Strikers and Big Bullets threw missiles onto the field of play after Civo were awarded a penalty in the dying minutes of the game, scaring players and match officials away from the penalty area.
Eventually, the game was abandoned as Dwangwa refused to return to the goal area. During the stoppage, a fracas involving a Civo official and a Silver Strikers’ supporter ensued on the touchline.
The worst was to happen at Silver Stadium on Sunday. Here the game was stopped twice as ganyu fans threw missiles on to the pitch in protest to the referee’s decisions to allow a goal scored by Silver’s Rodrick Douglas.
After the game Silver’s team manager Gibson Mkanda was attacked by Tigers’ players as he rushed to collect the match-ball belonging to his team. Later on the official tussled with Tigers’ coach Ibra Mwase.
Angered by the assault on their official, Silver supporters stormed the pitch. In the mayhem Tigers striker Rodrick Gonani was hit in the stomach by a stone. Daily Times photographer Lazarous Nedi was also attacked by the fans when he tried to take pictures of the fracas.
On Tuesday The Nation flashed a picture of Mkanda scuffling with Tigers’ coach Ibra Mwase. The photograph did not go down well with some football officials, who felt the picture would portray a bad image of the game to sponsors.
Much as sponsors would not be happy with such developments, media houses have a responsibility to report on facts and events as they unfold. It is not our duty as journalists to conceal facts in order to protect image of an organisation.
If anything, Football Association of Malawi and the Malawi Police Service (MPS) should come up with tough and practical measures to halt these barbaric acts. The press has time and again suggested means of putting violence to a stop and has even provided information on how other countries approach issues of violence but most of these suggestions have fallen on deaf ears.
Fam and the police should copy from other football authorities in countries like England where hooligans are identified and banned from watching matches.
Which reminds me that about two years ago, the police made noise that they had acquired a security camera for monitoring hoodlums at football matches. The police went on to say they would be compiling pictures, which could be made available to soccer authorities and used as evidence during court proceedings.
To this day we have not heard much about the camera. Hooligans have been left scot-free after destroying property and harassing innocent people, some of whom had brought their families to see their favourite team in action.
Security cameras aside, people who cause violence at matches are usually very few and are known by members of the soccer fraternity. I could actually produce a list of at least 10 in Lilongwe if approached by the authorities.
If Fam had devised mechanisms of identifying culprits, ban them from matches or even get them arrested, we could not have been showing pictures of violence.
The association does not even need sophisticated equipment to detect hoodlums. The Walter Nyamilandu administration, which has already taken football in the right direction, can have its own secret intelligence unit or task force to assist in the identification of violence perpetrators.
For players and officials who indulge and cause violent acts, the association does not need an intelligence unit to identify them. The association has records of club players and officials and if one of them is involved in violence, it will just be a question of what sort of punishment to mete out.
The Fam Cup Task Force’s dream of making football happen will remain just a dream if acts of hooliganism are not wiped out of this beautiful game which is adored by millions.
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