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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter

Minister Makhosini Hlongwane

THERE is a need to devise mechanisms that make it easier for authorities to identify rogue elements pushing their own agendas at football matches in general and those involving Highlanders in particular.

This emerged during a consultative meeting between Bosso, the Sports and Recreation Commission, Premier Soccer League and Zifa in Harare yesterday.

The meeting was convened by Sport and Recreation Minister Makhosini Hlongwane to deliberate on possible causes and solutions of violence at football matches, particularly involving Highlanders.

The meeting agreed that without any hooligan identification mechanisms, it creates a security dilemma and makes it difficult to say with certainty that unruly elements that cause trouble are bona fide Highlanders’ members or supporters, although home teams are charged with maintaining peace at their matches.

“While those things may have merit (none Highlanders members causing violence), organisers have a responsibility to plan with that in mind. For instance, one of the things that was highlighted was that if you watch the EPL (English Premier League), you can tell that these bays are Arsenal, this bay is Chelsea, but if you go to Barbourfields when Highlanders is playing, you can’t tell that all those people on that bay are Highlanders supporters, and that creates a security dilemma,” said the SRC board chairman Edward Siwela.

“It becomes difficult for you to tell whether the people actually causing these problems are Highlanders’ members, card carrying members or not. So you need in your control mechanism to include the mechanism which will say card carrying members this is where you are sitting and then you are able to isolate other unruly elements.  But if you have a loose arrangement and then you want to use it when you start raising issues that they may be rogue elements whom you can’t identify due to your own weaknesses, then that type of defence has no traction,” said Siwela.

The SRC boss said the meeting agreed that some of issues raised were beyond Highlanders, but needed to be tackled at policy level and the SRC will certainly follow it up with relevant bodies in a bid to ensure that violence remains confined in the dustbins of history.

“There are other areas again to do with policy, either us as SRC or the ministry or Zifa or PSL need to come in. We are very much willing to assist; we would obviously want to follow these things up and ensure that violence at stadia is stemmed.

“We will certainly be following up to ensure that this thing called violence and untoward behaviour in stadia becomes confined to the dustbins of history. We explored matters to do with security at match venues and security is not just about the police, but about the whole set-up. For instance, one of the areas that we explored was at what time are gates opened when you have a big match such as Highlanders against Dynamos.

“In this last incident, it would appear that against all advice, gates were opened late and people were already agitated by the time they got in and these are administrative matters,” said Siwela.

He said the issue of people getting into stadia drunk as well as the sale of intoxicating substances finding their way into match venues despite the presence of police, were also raised.

“We explored all these and also focused on the role of a club in regulating the conduct of its supporters and we felt that clubs needed to do more and in particular Highlanders needed to do more in that area. Of course, we were informed that they have marshals; that they do some road shows, hold pre-match press conferences, but at the end of the day, it’s about how effective programmes being deployed are.

“We were informed by Highlanders that they are working on fan development programmes with a certain sponsor, but we feel they need to do more particularly in relation to stakeholder relations,” Siwela said. – @skhumoyo2000