Go deeper
History always finds a way of repeating itself. Tragedies such as the Balaka Stadium violence that cost Lemiyasi Josita’s life last Saturday is as a result of domestic football fraternity’s shocking inability to learn from the past.
Debate will rage on the Super League of Malawi’s (Sulom) verdict—banning Silver Strikers and Mighty Wanderers for eight and five months respectively in addition to K700 000 and K2.95 million fines.
Going through the verdict, my take is that beyond saying the obvious that the teams failed to control their fans, it does not go deeper to explain why the supporters in the first place are of late resorting to street fighting and mob justice at football venues. The violence has been treated in isolation as if it were the first time it has happened.
At first, referees’ presumed incompetence was fingered as the source of the crowd trouble. Then Army teams were blamed and now who is to blame for this Tom and Jerry madness?
Coming months after a similar incident led to Kamuzu Stadium closure, then a fake and useless memorandum of understanding (MoU) signing, the latest verdict skirts around issues. It is, to say the least, simplistic on a complex devil that has descended on our football.
Either we have not learnt from our past or from others’ past.
On April 11 2001, tragedy struck South Africa football when 43 fans died at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg during a Soweto derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
The South Africa Premier Soccer League entrusted South Africa provincial High Court Judge Justice Ngoepe with a commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of the disaster.
The commission’s report was exhaustive, but it did not recommend banning of venues and teams, but addressed fundamental issues. The report concluded that there was poor forecast of attendance.
Throwing Silver Strikers versus Mighty Wanderers’ game in the picture, I can conclude that all parties underestimated attendance for such a high octane match.
The Ellis report also cited failure to learn from the past, identify role players and designate responsibility, unbecoming behaviour of spectators, absence of overall command centre, sale of tickets at the venue and unreserved seating and use of tear gas and police failure to react timeously.
Malawi can only deal with violence by addressing fundamental issues. Let us go deeper.
