Poor Refereeing Contribute To Hooliganism, Says Romario
Prominent Dynamos and Warriors fan Chris “Romario” Musekiwa said that hooliganism has no room in football but also questioned the standard of officiating at Premier Soccer League (PSL) matches.
This comes after the PSL suspended all top-flight fixtures following crowd trouble during FC Platinum versus Highlanders and Highlanders versus Dynamos matches in recent weeks.
Before the Barbourfields chaos last Sunday, violence broke out at Mandava Stadium when FC Platinum hosted Highlanders in a league match.
The violence prompted PSL leadership to call for a stakeholders indaba to brainstorm on how to eradicate hooliganism from football.
In his contributions in a leaked WhatsApp chat that involved PSL bosses and stakeholders, Musekiwa called for stiff sanctions to be meted on hooligans. He said:
Hooliganism has no room in our beautiful game of football, hence hooligans and perpetrators of violence must be brought to book.
Those who lead in crowd trouble must be heavily dealt with and the laws of the land must also punish them as well.
Such kind of behaviour may compromise football sponsorship and even close doors for those that intend to join in.
My appeal to the PSL Leadership is to find a way to deal with this once and for all.
We have also noted with a great concern some incompetent and inexperienced match officials who are being tasked to handle high profile matches pitting the nation’s biggest clubs, with a case in point being the ones who handled the Battle of Supremacy part one between the Harare giants Dynamos, and the Bulawayo giants Highlanders, who we all feel should be suspended and be sent back to the school of refereeing once more.
With such kind of officiating we wish that the likes of Felix Tangawarima, Wilfred Mukuna, Wonder Kalota (late), Tichaona Chapfika (late) and Ngonidzashe Boyd were still up and about to officiate.
Another contributor by the name Masaisai seemed to blame football coaches for fans’ frustrations which leads to violence.
He suggested that fans engage in hooliganism because they would be frustrated with “boring football”.
