PSL ropes in police at matches

Cele, Khoza elated about partnership

The Premier Soccer League (PSL) has announced a partnership with police‚ joining forces through the MultiChoice Diski Challenge (MDC) games where the men and women in blue will preach the anti-crime gospel at soccer matches.

The initiative will be officially launched at the weekend when MDC games kick off at the Hammersdale Stadium near Durban.

The announcement was made by PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza and police minister Bheki Cele at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg on Thursday.

“We will follow this initiative and check if at the end of the day it will give us good outcomes,” said Cele. “Policing is a partnership especially with the young people. This initiative will help us create better a relationship with young people.”

He said police would interact with people to find out how best to avoid getting into crime and getting those already involved out of it.

“We hope this will indeed look like a national initiative. It will create better relationships with the community; if we don’t improve our relationship with the people, it [the initiative] won’t work.

“In the next few days we will release the crime statistics which don’t look good. We hope this initiative will help us improve the situation throughout the country.”