We must curb football violence
Our 2013/2014 local season which has almost come to an end recorded violent incidents on some match officials and other stakeholders. The fact that such incidents persist means that we should all examine them carefully and adopt the appropriate measures to get rid of them.
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In the Western Region, a 21-year old assistant referee, Mr Kwame Kyei Andoh, died as a result of a suspected assault on him during a Second Division match at Badwei.
The anger and jaw-dropping that greeted the March 2 assault on referees in the Western Region had hardly disappeared when another assault was visited on three referees and a match commissioner during a Division One match at Atebubu.
The leadership of the Referees Association of Ghana (RAG) was disturbed and actually threatened to embark on a strike action. The authorities got a hint of it and averted it through a round table meeting.
According to referee Tachie-Menson who handled the Division One match, he had initially refused to start the match when he realised that only six uniformed policemen and four people who were wearing dresses with ‘Police CID’ written on them were present as security men.
But his fourth referee, who was from Atebubu just as the home team, told him that they should start and, indeed, even five policemen would have been enough. And with the commander of the policemen present promising him that the number of security men would be beefed up with more policemen and fire men, he started the match.
When I spoke to referee Tachie-Menson he said he actually regretted ever starting the match. That was because everything during the match pointed to a very rowdy match. While the home team’s supporters kept on invading the inner perimeter of the field, the policemen looked on unconcerned.
As if to add insult to injury, the ball boys also kept throwing extra balls onto the field of play anytime players of the away team, Techiman FC, made promising moves into the vital area of the home team, Atebubu Esperance. And with the home supporters having the freedom to invade the playing field with ease, the match became nasty, difficult to control and manage.
What made matters even more dangerous was an ‘advice’ from the police that the referee should realise that he had his security and that of the match in his own hands. Now, when a security man tells a referee this, what should be the interpretation? It clearly meant that he should ‘allow’ the home team to undeservedly win the match. And so, the referee was left at the mercy and manipulation of the home team and its supporters.
They attacked and assaulted the referee and his two assistants and the match commissioner at will and nobody was there to protect them. Indeed, referee Tachie-Manson claimed he was stabbed on his left tie.
According to him things became very unbearable when, during one bout of assault, the supporters warned him that if he did not award a penalty kick to the home team, he and his assistants would be killed. That was in the 88th minute. And so what did he do. He had a clear choice, death or penalty award.
He, therefore, told them he was awarding them a penalty kick. The ball was placed on the penalty mark and the kick was taken and ‘a goal’ was scored. Therefore the match ended at Atebubu 1-0 in favour of Atebubu Esperance. But and but, referee Tachie-Manson put the official result in his match report as 0-0.
Well, I neither have access to the referee’s report nor that of the match commissioner but that was what referee Tachie-Manson, whom I know personally, told me. With that he and his two assistants, Richard Tawiah and Daniel Ntiamoah, all from Kumasi, were free to travel back to their station.
During an international course for Referee Assessors at Prampram, this type of incident was narrated to us by one of our resource personnel as having happened somewhere in an African country. I never thought at that time that that story would repeat itself in Ghana and in the year 2014 and at Atebubu and not in a very remote village.
And this was a Division One match, a division that is only one step below our Premier League. This is horrible, disgraceful and very unacceptable. And when I discussed the incident with a top official of our Division One League Board, he gleefully confessed to me that “as for assaults on referees who handle DOL matches, they are common and often.”
Luckily, referee Tachie-Manson is alive, unlike assistant referee Kwame Kyei Andoh. And so like referee Patrick Kojo Kyeremanteng and FIFA assistant referee, now retired, George Seija, and FIFA assistant referee, Dawood Ouadraogo, he would pay a few visits to the hospital with a police report, get part of his medical bills paid by the offending club and maybe a few Ghana cedis for transport and that will be all till another assault case. As for the fans and supporters who committed the assault they would never be identified and arrested.
How can we as a football nation curb and, indeed, eliminate this canker from our game if we continue like this. There was this coach who predicted that one day a referee would be ‘gunned down’. His prediction has come through and true.
How can we play football in this modern middle income Ghana when penalty awards would be given on demand? How can we end a game of football in present day Ghana with two different results, whereby the result on the field of play would be different from the official result in the referee’s report?
How can we continue to have security men at football matches abandoning their professional roles in support of home teams? And how long, as a referees association, can we tolerate this. One referee is dead and gone, another one has been stabbed and many others have been assaulted.
Our Association chairman, the General Secretary and almost all our leaders are retired referees and do not therefore handle matches. But supposing any of them would suffer any assault or any form of molestation in the course of their duties as referee managers, shall we keep quiet and do nothing.
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If we cannot through the police get the fans who assault our referees and get them punished, I think we can get the clubs whose fans or supporters assault our referees. Boycotting a whole league may be too much, but what about withdrawing referees’ services from the individual club whose fans assault referees.
If we do not or cannot protect our referees, the standard will not improve. There are so many people who feel that they are too noble, too important and therefore are above being referees. Elsewhere, we have engineers, lawyers, senior armed forces personnel, medical officers and other notable professionals as active referees. Why not here in Ghana. One of the reasons I stopped refereeing was the fact that I thought my position and status in my official place of work was not compatible with refereeing. We should keep refereeing as a noble vocation worth belonging to.
Assaults should have no place in our football, at least, not in GFA matches.