Kenya: Time Has Come to Rein in Football Hooligans

Kwendo Opanga

28 May 2011

opinion

Nairobi — A football fan, especially a child, should cry in the terraces because his or her favourite team is losing. This child should never cry because of, or choke on, tear gas fumes.

Our football stadia should be places of entertainment, good cheer, good times and fun for entire families — from the eager grandma to the inquisitive grandchild. They should never be battlefields.

In other words, families should look forward to weekend football matches as outings, which is to say this should be the same as going to the beach, picnic, music festival or roller coaster.

This will not happen as long as fans turn hooligans when their team is losing, has lost or has won and turn their anger, energy and joy on anything and everything, anybody and everybody.

We must, as lovers of football, emulate what we saw last Sunday at the end of the English season: Families turning up at stadia; players and their families taking to the pitch to greet the fans.

But things do not happen; they are caused to happen. First, football hooligans and goons who assault others and destroy property must face the law. They must be arrested and charged.

They must be fined and or jailed. If somebody accosts you in the street and assaults you, this is what should happen to them. Football hooligans and goons must not be treated differently.

If somebody smashes your car windscreens and windows, rips away mirrors and jumps on the bonnet and dents it, they should be charged with malicious damage to property.

Police must gather intelligence on the hooligans and goons; take pictures of them and keep them in a data base. They should be exposed, isolated and denied entry into the country’s stadia.

Alternatively, armed with this intelligence, police will be able to monitor the hooligans closely, sit among them, hear them, see what they are carrying, watch for any signs of trouble and pounce.

Next, the men and women who run football in Kenya, be they from the private company called Football Kenya Limited or the Kenya Football Federation, must engage in civic education.

Working together, the ministry of Sports, the Stadium Management Board, FKL and KFF must then be ready to take tough decisions, make and enforce tougher rules and the toughest laws.

Clubs, their supporters and fans must be taught to turn stadia into arenas of celebration of football and good neighbourliness and the spirit of competition in which goons are not welcome.

Clubs, their supporters and fans must know there are consequences for rioting because a riot is a public disturbance, which leads to destruction of property and injuries to innocent people.

It should be clear that clubs whose fans cause matches to be abandoned or who riot will be held squarely responsible for the misbehaviour and will pay a price proportionate to damage caused.

The simplest way for clubs to feel the pinch and heat for the misbehaviour of their goons is for them to play in empty stadia, face substantial fines and have their league points docked.

This is to say that when fans caused the abandonment of the match between Gor Mahia and Rangers FC, their club should have been fined and ordered to play in empty stadia thereafter.

I am making the point that this would not be enough. I am saying that quite apart from losing the points from that match, the club should forfeit more points from its league tally.

If the club does not have points or has fewer than those it should relinquish, then it should have a negative tally so that when it begins to win games, it forfeits those points to make up the deficit.

Therefore, if we are going to clean up our football, then we must begin by making tough laws and rules and by enforcing these and those which already exist locally and globally.

Good people, we have it: Those who want to lead the football administration entity that will emerge from the coming election must commit to be tough on hooliganism.

They must commit to making laws and rules to make our stadia safe for grandma and grandchild, and the old and infirm to look forward to going to cheer their favourite teams without fear.

I must, however, emphasise that people do not obey laws or rules because they exist. Laws and rules are obeyed because they are enforced and culprits feel their full weight and force.

Will you lead, Dr Paul Otuoma?

Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant

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