Bosso fined $5 000

CASH-STRAPPED Highlanders have been fined heavily by the Premier Soccer League's disciplinary committee for the invasion of the pitch by their supporters during the Castle Lager Premiership match against Harare City on 1 July which ended 1-1 at Barbourfields Stadium. Bosso were found guilty and fined $5 000 half of which was suspended for the rest of the season on condition that the club, its officials and its supporters are not convicted of any offence involving violence or throwing of missiles.

The effective fine of $2 500 should be paid by 30 September.

The club, which was represented by Mgcini Mpofu, the Harare Supporters Association chairman, and his treasurer, Brighton Ncube, pleaded guilty.

In the judgment, the disciplinary committee, led by chairman Vusi Vuma and committee members Don Moyo, Brighton Mudzamiri and Aisha Tsimba found the log leaders to have contravened Order 31.1.13 which states that it is an act of misconduct on the part of the club where "its supporters misbehave in any manner whatsoever, inside or outside a ground before, during or after a match, no matter on which ground the match is played.

"Without derogating from the generality of what constitutes misbehaviour on the part of supporters, the following are specifically declared to be acts of misbehaviour:- 'invasion or attempted invasion of field of play save for reason of crowd safety, throwing or attempt to throw missiles, bottled or other objects, whether harmful or dangerous or not, onto the pitch, or any person. Acts of violence or attempted acts of violence against anyone at the game," wrote the disciplinary committee.

The agreed facts as stated by the match commissioner on the day, Sabelo Maphosa, were that at the end of the second half, three minutes of stoppage time was added.

During the third minute of that stoppage time, Harare City FC were awarded a goal kick and the goalkeeper John Nomore prepared to take the restart.

However, instead of playing the ball he knelt down to fix his footwear and continued until the referee had to run back to him and caution him for delaying the restart.

After cautioning the goalkeeper, the referee went back to take up his position for the restart but the goalkeeper continued with the delay. The referee did not take further action against the goalkeeper.

As the goalkeeper continued with his delaying tactics, the spectators on the southern stand started throwing empty plastic bottles at him.

The police went in to try and appeal to the spectators to calm down but the more the police tried to restore sanity the worse the situation became.

Stones and other objects were thrown onto the field. Order was eventually restored and the match resumed after a 10-minute stoppage.

"In my opinion, the police handled the match situation inside the stadium very well as no injuries to players, match officials or other innocent people were observed," wrote Maphosa in her report.

In arriving at the sentence, the committee took into account facts in favour of Highlanders after noting that by pleading guilty, the Bulawayo-based club did not waste the committee's time.

It also noted that the Highlanders executive swiftly moved in to assist the police in cooling down tempers in order to address hooliganism.

However, what is ironic is that while the committee noted the Highlanders executive's efforts to calm the riotous supporters, Maphosa, a former referee known as Sibindi, did not include that in her report.

"The club has promised to carry out more educational campaigns, chief among them displaying banners at the stadium, placing banners outside commuter buses denouncing hooliganism. The supporters association and the marshals are working flat out to weed out the culprits. The club also implored the football authorities to assist in barring those supporters who come to watch matches drunk," wrote the committee.

In aggravation it was noted that while the actions of the Harare City goalkeeper provoked the throwing of missiles by the supporters their conduct was worse than that of the player.
Highlanders chairman Peter Dube said he had not seen the verdict by yesterday evening and as such could not give an informed comment.

"Having said that I think our supporters have learnt a very hard lesson but honestly I think of late they have been the best group of supporters around and for us to continue hammering them for something which is past might not be fair. Unruly behaviour will never be tolerated but these guys have been a marvel of late, supporting the team even if things are not going well and one can only but commend them on that while also urging them to continue desisting from untoward behaviour," said Dube.