Online Reporter
Howard Musonza
Zimpapers Sports Hub Editor
MORE than 24-hours after violence brought Chahwanda Stadium to a standstill, Zimbabwean football has entered a familiar phase.
The videos are circulating. The blame game has begun.
One side says supporters from the other end started it. Another says security disappeared when it mattered most. Others blame referees, organisers, marshals and football authorities.
Everybody is searching for the first bottle.
But perhaps that is the wrong place to start.
Because disasters rarely begin with the first bottle. They begin long before riot police arrive, long before supporters jump over barriers and long before punches are thrown in the middle of a football pitch. They begin when warning signs are ignored.
By yesterday morning the conversation had already moved beyond anger. Across supporter groups, football circles and social media, the bigger question had started taking shape.
Was Chahwanda simply a case of hooliganism? Or was football already walking towards trouble before a ball had even been kicked?
Kick-off itself had already offered one warning sign. The match was delayed by 20 minutes as supporters continued gathering outside before eventually being allowed into the stadium.
Hours later, questions had shifted towards crowd control, access arrangements and visible security deployment at a match many expected would attract one of the biggest attendances of the season. Those concerns matter because once chaos starts football usually becomes obsessed with the final moments.
Who invaded first? Who threw the first missile? Who reacted? Those answers may eventually emerge through disciplinary hearings and official reports. But perhaps some of the warning signs had already been sitting in plain sight.
Last Friday, a preview by Zimpapers Sports Hub reporter Tongai Mashonga captured the scale of what was coming.
It described Dynamos as the country’s biggest crowd-pullers and highlighted expectations that supporters’ chapters from around the country would descend on Kwekwe for what was expected to be one of the loudest atmospheres of the season. The story spoke of a “terrace battle” and supporters competing to dominate the stands. One supporter even suggested that the away bay would be too small to contain the expected Dynamos following. At the time it sounded like excitement.
Days later, it reads differently.
Not because anybody predicted violence.
But because everybody already knew this was going to be big. If football knew that, then another question follows naturally.
Were preparations just as big?
Zimbabwean football has repeatedly found itself asking the same questions around crowd management, security and match-day organisation. I remember Mandava in 2022 because I was there, not as a supporter, but as part of a broadcasting team covering a match live for Zimpapers TV Network.
It was the first time I experienced tear gas.
One moment there was football. The next moment breathing itself had become difficult.
As team leader for the broadcasting crew, my mind immediately left the game. I was thinking about my team, expensive equipment and capturing events unfolding around us because those pictures could later become evidence.
Football had disappeared.
That may be the point that keeps returning in these incidents.
Violence changes priorities instantly. The score no longer matters. Tactics no longer matter. People start thinking about getting home safely. Another uncomfortable question also emerged from the videos circulating after Chahwanda.
Leadership itself had entered the conversation. One clip widely shared on social media appeared to show a football administrator involved in a confrontation during the chaos, immediately shifting another part of the debate towards leadership and conduct during moments of crisis.
The footage triggered debate because football administrators are expected to be among the people restoring calm when control disappears. Hardrock chief executive officer Kudzanai “Fish” Hove quickly became part of that conversation.
Because one of the difficult questions coming out of Chahwanda is no longer only about supporters. It is about everybody present when order breaks down.
Football researcher Dr Lyton Ncube believes Zimbabwean football has passionate supporters but structures have struggled to keep pace with that passion. “We have fans who are passionate about the game, but they have been let down by administration cultures and structures,” he said.
Chahwanda leaves a similar question hanging in the air. Has football culture evolved faster than football structures? Ncube also argues that football must increasingly be treated as a business.
“Zimbabwean football should be evaluated as a business enterprise just as is done in other successful leagues,” he said.
That matters because violence carries costs beyond ninety minutes. It damages facilities. It increases security costs. It weakens football’s ability to attract and protect commercial partners. For years football has complained that supporters no longer come to local matches.
Then supporters came.
In huge numbers. And by yesterday morning football itself had already disappeared from the conversation. Nobody was debating Hardrock’s equaliser. Nobody was discussing tactics. Nobody cared about the point.
Instead, people were replaying videos of supporters fighting, security struggling and panic spreading across a football field.
Because if football convinces itself that Chahwanda began with the first bottle, then it risks ignoring everything that happened before it.
And that may be how the next stadium starts waiting.
