Soccer clubs have duty to teach supporters to act responsibly Highlanders fans invade the pitch during the Highlanders-Dynamos match at Barbourfields Stadium on May 14.
Highlanders fans invade the pitch during the Highlanders-Dynamos match at Barbourfields Stadium on May 14.

Highlanders fans invade the pitch during the Highlanders-Dynamos match at Barbourfields Stadium on May 14.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
Zimbabwe’s oldest football club, Highlanders, have very recently been experiencing negative publicity because of allegedly unprofessional public behaviour by some of its supporters.

In the first incident, some club supporters invaded a part of Bulawayo’s Barbourfields Stadium following what they perceived to be a biased decision by a referee during a Highlanders versus Dynamos match.

That led to the abandonment of the tussle in the 42nd minute. A disciplinary hearing was later convened, and Highlanders was found guilty and fined $4 000 in addition to the game being awarded to Dynamos.

In the second event, police details appeared to have over-reacted by firing teargas into the pitch a minute or two before the final whistle at a Highlanders versus FC Platinum encounter in Zvishavane as some of the spectators were trooping out of the ground after an anti-Highlanders penalty that resulted in an equaliser.

In that Zvishavane incident, it would certainly appear that security details acted in anticipation of, rather than in reaction to an adverse development. We are, however, most probably jumping the gun here as the issue is still awaiting disciplinary deliberation.

In spite of that, we can and should take a general bird’s eye-view of the goings-on in Zimbabwe’s soccer scene, with particular focus on the Dynamos versus Highlanders encounter. Zimbabwe is a multi-ethnic nation, and so are by and large its football teams.

We can reasonably conclude that what matters to most Zimbabwean soccer supporters are the uniforms worn by each team and not the individual players’ ethnic identity or linguistic affiliation.

Gone are the days when most of the people of this country socialised strictly on tribal lines as was the case some five or six decades ago when burial societies were tribally based.

At that time, we had Matebele Highlanders and Mashonaland United football clubs. That regionalistic soccer nomenclature ended after the late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo ordered that the clubs should stop using tribalistic or regionalistic names.

Zimbabwe presently has teams whose players come from the country’s various socio-cultural environments and regions. Club supporters are more or less from similar socio-cultural origins, although teams, particularly Highlanders, are certainly more multi-ethnic than its supporters.

Talking about soccer club supporters brings us to probably the most important aspect of this discussion, which is how best to impose some discipline on them at soccer matches. Presently, soccer club supporters behave virtually as they please save for fear of normal law enforcement personnel as represented by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).

The author of this article has heard on several occasions that football clubs have to pay the ZRP in order for them to offer their security services at the concerned clubs’ matches. Why that is allowed and done is not understandable to this author because the duties and responsibilities of every national police force is to give security to the public at every social, political, cultural or any other gathering where there is a relatively large number of people.

The ZRP members are paid monthly to provide national security to every Zimbabwean citizen, resident or visitor at whatever place or occasion and at whatever time without charge or remuneration by the beneficiary as a constitutionally laid down obligation.

If the ZRP is not paid for giving security cover to political rallies, why should they be remunerated for covering social events? Is the ZRP paid for giving security cover to inter-school sports events?

That apart, soccer clubs have a duty to educate their supporters to behave responsibly at matches. That can be done by creating some loose organisations with structures headed by officials such as chairpersons, supporters’ security officials and public relations persons.

Supporters’ security officials could serve at least two purposes, to influence club supporters to promote the club’s wish image, and to liaise with conventional law enforcement agencies such as the ZRP to control sports spectators.

This takes us to a common cause of riotous behaviour at soccer matches, which is biased referring in some African and even in some Asian countries. That was cited as the cause of the pitch invasion at the Highlanders versus Dynamos match already mentioned.

While the Highlanders Club has already appeared before the Zifa disciplinary committee, this writer is not aware of Highlanders taking the complaint to a relevant Zifa structure to deal with the concerned referee.

One can reasonably assume that the invasion of the ground by some Highlanders supporters did not deprive their club of its right to lodge a complaint, and to expect appropriate action.

Referees and umpires are supposed to be tried and tested, knowledgeable people chosen to enforce rules of a particular sport, (or to arbitrate between disputants).

They are to sports what magistrates and judges are to a judicial process. They are expected to be ruthlessly impartial. A referee or umpire, magistrate or judge who feels that his or her impartiality could be compromised by or for whatever reason should withdraw from officiating in that event.

It could also serve a useful purpose if Fifa were to introduce and enforce a practice whereby some senior officials of teams scheduled to compete were given the right to accept or reject one or more of the referees selected for that event.

Details of such a Fifa statute as to its applicability and confidentiality could be worked out by the relevant soccer world body. That it is desirable is in no doubt if we take some African and Asian matches into consideration.

We should accept that some people are irreversibly attached to money, even more than Judas Iscariot in that he (Iscariot) later regretted about what he did that he committed suicide. In the case of some of our people, they would rather commit murder to enable them to continue being bribed than for them to regret.

In some cases, local economic factors generate corruption, and turn what could be respectable professionals into shameless mercenaries.

Match-fixing is a good example of how low some sports professionals can sink.

In Highlanders’ case, one cannot rule out the possibility of infiltration of the supporters at large by either mercenary, or malicious or irresponsible characters. A well led and properly structured supporters’ association can help identify the anti-social elements.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email: [email protected]

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