Online ReporterBrian Sebastian Gondowe
FORGET about who started it or what triggered it.
The bigger issue is that football stadiums are slowly becoming unsafe places for ordinary supporters.
That should alarm everyone far more than club rivalry or online point scoring.
PSL can fine clubs, deduct points, and release statements after every incident, but that is reacting after the damage is already done.
he real question is: where was the security planning before kick-off?
Where were the preventative measures when tensions were already predictable?
Fans were slowly coming back to stadiums to support local football again, bringing their families, their kids, and their passion for the game and then this happens. Incidents like these push people away from football all over again.
I have personally seen fathers, mothers, and young kids attending these matches together.
Families go to football to support their teams, create memories, and enjoy the game not to run for cover from stones, invasions, and violence.
In such moments, who protects the innocent people who had nothing to do with the chaos?
And after the point deductions and fines, what real measures are being put in place to ensure this never happens again? Supporters deserve to know.
It is high time PSL publicly shares its security plans, risk assessments, and crowd control measures for high-risk fixtures.
That transparency is long overdue.
For too long responsibility has been pushed entirely onto clubs while the league avoids scrutiny over stadium safety standards, policing, crowd control, and risk assessment.
Certain fixtures are known to be high tension.
Failing to prepare adequately is negligence.
Football cannot keep normalizing scenes where supporters fear for their lives simply for attending a match.
One day lives could be lost, and by then fines and deducted points will mean absolutely nothing.
Do I understand what is being said here? What supporters is the writer referring to? Those who cause chaos are football supporters too. In fact they are the most passionate hence get too excited easily. Football is not war and stadia are not war zones. It is misdirecting concerns by expecting the PSL, clubs and police to concentrate on security when the main event is football. The problem is people, the same being called supporters by the writer here. We should not expect armed security with combat gear complete with dogs and other security features to grace our stadia. We need to educate fans on how to behave at football games. The fact that the majority of games are played and end in peaceful environments most of the time clearly shows that what is required is not tight security but behaviour education for fans. This can be accomplished by, for instance, docking not only three points from the club whose fans would be found guilty, but docking three games (that is nine points). In that way the passionate supporters will think twice before they misbehave.