Zero tolerance for assault on referees
The death of Assistant Referee, Kwame Kyei Andoh has again brought into sharp focus the constant threat that referees face in handling matches. Assistant Referee Kyei Andoh, together with Referee William Boadi Kwofie and another Assistant Referee, Hamza Ali, were appointed to handle a Second Division League match of the Western Region. The match was between Dompim Gold Stars and Naajo Royals FC and was played at Bawdie on Bawdie School Park on March 2, 2014. Naajo Royals, the away team, won the match 2 - 0 with both goals coming during the first half.
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It appeared Assistant Referee Kyei Andoh’s ‘crime’ was that he flagged for an off-side positioning on the part of the home team’s attacking player. And so he and the middle referee were assaulted. The match was, however, allowed to travel for the full 90 minutes. At the end of the match, the assault resumed and the referee, including the Match Commissioner, had to flee for their dear lives.
With the assistance of policemen, who were not at the match but somewhere nearby at a police barrier, the referees managed to reach their homes. But then, assistant referee Kwame Kyei Andoh, four or five days later, had to be rushed to the hospital where he died. And so assistant referee or for short, referee Kyei Andoh, is dead; dead at age 21 with no wife and children. He was a graduate teacher. What a pity.
Frankly, anybody who is connected with the game of football agrees that this is not the first violence in our football. The most memorable are the assaults visited on referee Patrick Kyeremanteng and his assistant George Seija at Cape Coast and Dawood Ouedrago at the Accra Sports Stadium. But the big question is ‘what have we, as football administrators, players and even referees, learnt so far?
The usual condemnations and sympathies have rung out. As usual, the match venue of the team that carried out the violence has been banned. And promises have been made to arrest and prosecute the actual perpetrators of the assaults. We are waiting for the arrests since I cannot recollect when this promise actually came to fruition.
I remember vividly when FIFA Assistant Referee Ouedrago was assaulted and found himself at the Ridge Hospital. President Nyantakyi known for his broad smiles and laughter could not control his tears when he saw Dawood with his scars and bruises. He even paid for his hospitalisation. But I suggest we should go further in our quest to control and prevent this violence in our football.
I have never hidden the fact that I have suffered spectators assaults twice during my 15 years of active refereeing. Before my Cape Coast beating, I had had a smaller one at the El-Wak Stadium. And the guilty team was a second Greater Accra Division Two team, La Scala. What did we do? We in the Accra District Referees Association decided and boycotted all matches involving the La Scala team.
That is, we decided not to handle any match played by that team. The team thought it had an escape route and approached Tema District Referee to assist them. By way of solidarity, Tema District refused. And so what happened? La Scala never had any referee and the team had to lose all its remaining matches and, therefore, went out of existence. That was the end of that team.
This sent a very strong signal to the remaining teams. And for a very long, long period, we never had such assaults. That is positive. Why can’t the RAG leadership boycott matches involving Dompim Gold Stars? This should be simple and easy.
I know of and appreciate the effectiveness of the various sanctions that the football authorities visit on erring clubs and teams. But the fact that this devil of assault is still with us should set all of us on rethinking mission. If the GFA, is hesitant in adopting this method, the referees association should adopt it. The RAG should decide, may be, before the start of the next season that, that would be the policy it would adopt and implement to try to stop the assaults.
If it is proved that we lost our referee through the Bawdie School Park assault, we should know that a young graduate’s life has been cut short through football violence. This is a serious dent on Ghana football and we should, as a football nation, not countenance it. We have already had offers of coffin sponsorship and other aspects of the funeral cost. But there is nothing we can do to bring back to life our dear Kyei Andoh. He is dead and gone and so must be the team whose supporters caused his demise.
All segments of our football organisation should definitely learn a lesson from this very unfortunate death. Even as referees we have a lot to learn. We have all been advised as referees to ensure that certain conditions should be in place before we go on the field to handle our matches.
It is evident that, there was absolutely no form of official security for the match to take place. According to the Match Commissioner, although the home team promised to provide police security, it turned out to be false. The directive is: “no security, no match”.
These referees may not be the only ones to have ignored this time-honoured directive. Some referees either through pressure and pursuation pay little or no attention to this all-important directive.
There are some team officials and some so-called football gurus who claim that referees should be their own security by handling the match efficiently. This cannot be true.
Football is a game of passion and supporters ignore the ability and performance of their players and decide and determine that they must win some particular matches, especially when they play on their home grounds. Security at matches is not only for match officials, but also for players, spectators and equipment, as well as properties at the stadium.
It is my hope that the newly elected Western Regional Referees Executive under retired FIFA referee Richard Attifu will assist the national RAG to ensure sanity in this particular violent and fatal assault case.
Our friends in the regional police service should also help in the investigations and arrest of the criminals who have visited this on our football. We wish to send our sympathies to the family of the late KYEI ANDOH. MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE.
We should all adopt a zero tolerance for violence in our football.