By Joseph Allieu
Violence in football is becoming rampant during football matches in Sierra Leone. The violence among fans is more common in the mini league matches organized in Freetown by the various mini-league organizers.
With the premier league and the division 1 clubs not having the chance to play pre-season matches, the players used the various mini leagues to prepare themselves for the premier league and the division1 leagues.
But for the past years, the various communities have misused the good opportunities for the players and the fans to enjoy good and peaceful football.
For some of these communities when a match result didn’t go in their favor, they blast for the referee and the organizers. Some claimed the referees accept bribe from some of the communities as such however the outcome is they will officiate against the team that did not bribe them.
But they have never come out with evidence of a particular referee caught accepting bribe. Some claimed the mini organizers always asked the referees to officiate in favor of a community that have more fans than the others so that they will get more gate takings.
Before any kick-off, the organizers always organize workshop to inform the communities about the rules and the regulations of their leagues.
In the workshop, there is always a referee to inform the various communities about the new rules of the game apart from the organizers’ own rules and regulations.
But even with that, the losing teams always attack the referees and the organizers. But the call from football pundits is that the only way to stop violence in football is to let the mini-leagues organizers unite so that any decision a particular league takes should cut across.
In this case, if they ban any community for one year or two years that particular community should not be allow to play in any of the leagues in the country.
The regional FAs, and the FA should also help to let the rules of the various leagues stand except if it is a bias decision.
The other request is to let the security officers go out to hunt all those involve in riots to face the law and not just to punish the community leaving out the perpetrators.
