How do we manage our fans at football matches?

19 Jun, 2022 - 00:06 0 Views
How do we manage our fans at football matches?

The Sunday News

The Castle Premier Soccer League continues to be troubled by hooliganism on and off the pitch. The current season has witnessed violence from Zvishavane to Bulawayo.

While the PSL management is trying to curtail these occurrences by fining and deducting points from teams, the trend seems an enduring one. But it is important that these types of problems are put to rest.

On what must be done to curtail further occurrences of these violent acts, I believe the lead must come from clubs themselves.

Honestly, the way fans engage in violence is very terrible and detrimental to the game in the short and long term.

Our clubs need to work hard to constantly keep their fans aware of the dangers of causing crowd trouble before, during and after a football match. We need to get to the root of these troubles and clubs need to educate their fans and try to build a security system that will curb violence.

Because, the way this thing is being perpetuated is crazy. I fear for what could happen next or clubs will continue to suffer after being sanctioned by the league for crowd trouble. I hope clubs will try to work with security agencies regularly to curb fan violence.

Bosso supporters

In Europe, football fans are quite violent but their clubs in consultation with their leagues and fan representatives have been able to craft effective methods to limit football violence. And yes, they too started with rudimentary methods and improved as revenues increased due to relative safety of attending football matches. So much so today whole families will go to the stadium to watch their beloved Nottingham Forest. And cry too! Such is their passion!

We have seen how close their fans are to the action at pitch side yet we do not see them stone rival players. What happens if you hurt your own player while trying to hurt a rival?

We too can train our marshals adequately to begin a process of cleansing our football of this menace. Well trained marshals will do a good job of policing their own. Most of them have good personal relations with a good number of their fans. And this is how they tend to their own – with love and respect but constantly reminding each other of the importance to the club they love of the dangers of causing violence when their team is playing whether home or away.

Our local police should also be involved in these training exercises to assist them in managing football crowds — sort of employ preventive measures rather than corrective measures. This will also help ensure that both the club marshals are on the same page when dealing with these often boisterous crowds.

Fans should also be educated on the cost of these violent episodes at football matches. As it is, Highlanders have been fined US$6 000 and lost three points for the violence in Zvishavane. We need to begin to realise that no behaviour will warrant acts that cost our clubs so much.

I also think maybe the PSL could consider re-investing the revenue made from fines in local stadia security like cameras and modern turnstiles.

I know and respect that our beloved football fans are the backbone of this thing called football. It is this very love for it that makes them anger at the slightest hint of possible injustice. But a constant reminder of the cost of violence will be understood by our fans. They will realise that the money their clubs pay in fines could be used to sign a key player. And the points could very well deny their club of a championship title. Sponsors are also quick to associate with violence-free clubs.

Last but definitely not the least, the key actors in football matches — players, technical staff and match officials — also need to be educated on the effect of their on-field demeanour to football fans. Sometimes these three actors have individually been the cause of violent outbreaks.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Clearly then, if we each play our unique role in ending our cycle of violence, stadia will again be home to even our little ones who have now been denied an opportunity to meet local icons! Our children now know more about Cristiano Ronaldo than they do the locals who are just next door. All because they watch so much more foreign football than do our own PSL rather risk being victims of violence at stadia.

We all need to interrogate the compound cost of violence at football matches — it is astronomic.

We need to see some people getting arrested for causing or participating in violence. If they are jailed, others will refrain from doing the same!

God bless us all and let’s keep loving our football.

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