TOM BWANA: FKF staring at glorious failure on hooliganism

Hooligans are just that: troublemakers. No matter how squeakily you screech your voice at denying them entry into the next match, they’ll deliver their key success indicator; violently cause chaos.

By threats shouted in the press, Football Kenya Federation (FKF) is planning glorious failure on how to tackle hooliganism.

FKF and other stakeholders of the game have just announced drastic measures aimed at eradicating hooliganism.

The underlying tone in the measures is that clubs whose fans cause chaos, and by extension abandonment, during matches risk playing a number of subsequent matches in empty stadia. Good enough.

To begin with, do we have fans on our stands today in the SportPesa Premier League? Modestly yes.

Not the sold-out figures we had in 2010 through to last year. The numbers are dwindling due to not-so-good football display from clubs.

Fans pay heavily for tickets. They expect to get value for money; which they are not getting for now. So they choose to stay away.

In 2008 I was part of a movement that spent weeks on end trying to hype local football and pleading with fans to come back to the stadium to watch local football.

Our biggest success was convincing key people who in turn convinced others and gradually things worked out and on October 23, 2010 the Mashemeji Derby of Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards was sold-out match.

In July 2011 a KPL match netted a record Ksh 6.7m in ticket sales.

For the past six years, fans have been central to giving local football its stature and status. In fact fans have been the very fabric of our football.

Think of Kenya’s biggest football brand, the Mashemeji Derby, and it’s all about the colour fans bring to the game.

The fan-base holds the fulcrum in the holy trinity of football. The rest – management and players – will always be there. I mean, even Sofapaka has players and managers  but nobody talks much about them.

Characteristically speaking, it is because of fans that corporates show interest in partnering with football as a whole.

When corporates come in to sponsor clubs, they are often seeking brand association. Association with who? The fans of course!

I’m also alive to the fact that acts of hooliganism threaten the very splendour of the beautiful game mostly in a Kenya where it is only now that marketing agencies are beginning to see the value of sports as a podium for brand visibility.

The measures announced by FKF President Nick Mwendwa this week do not, in my view, help in fighting hooliganism.

As Gilbert Wandera rightly described in The Standard, they are punitive. If hooliganism truly thrives on force, why would FKF even imagine they can kick it out using force?

You do not solve a problem using the same means with which it was created. I don’t even know who said that but he had a point.

I honestly think someone is missing the point on how to effectively deal with hooliganism in the stadium. For instance, how is it that we are not admonishing the security agencies that handle our matches?

By the time a fan breaks the security hedge to invade the pitch and accost the referees it only means the security agencies are negligent.

Typically the police sit at the VIP section of the stadium, get engrossed into the match, devour groundnuts as if it’s their only meal of the day, wash it down in cans of soda before they embark on photo sessions with their stars Jaro Soja of Gor or Isaac Juma of Leopards depending on the match of the day.

I get bewildered whenever I see cops get star-struck at the sight of Jaro Soja – a fake cop. Then at the slightest noise from the fans they cock their teargas dispensers and charge at them like they would do to terrorists. Unnecessary theatrics!

Listen, worldwide fans’ behavior is not scripted so expecting them to behave according to your textbook is wishful thinking. They are not in a church for Christ’s sake!

They are in the stadium watching a game that grips emotions so much you often find yourself hugging and high-fiving strangers. It is common knowledge some referee decisions will not be palatable to the largely partisan crowds in the stadium.

The success of any security operation therefore, is not lack of chaos in the stadium but the interception of imminent chaos. Do you really need university degrees, even from Punjab University, to comprehend that?

Unless ours is a failed state, confining football matches in empty stadia is not justifiable in any way. It only goes to cast aspersions on our crowd handling capacities.

Any stranger listening in to these retaliatory measures taken by the federation would imagine we are dealing with crowds of 100,000 people on every weekend while the painful truth is ours has been reduced to a headline-grabbing 15,000 on Mashemeji Derby otherwise a paltry 56 people on a Mathare United vs Ulinzi Stars game suffices.

We have manageable crowds. Football administrators should invest in effective event handling process to tackle the menace once and for all. Sponsors are looking for brand acceptability by associating with fans. Fans help spur growth of footballers’ careers by continually gauging them. Really, what is football without the fans?

@TomBwana