Bosso, Caps fans in friendly
THE Zimbabwe National Soccer Supporters’ Association (ZNSSA) has commended Highlanders and Caps United fans’ efforts to fight hooliganism through a friendly match that the two sets will play in Bulawayo today.
The match will be played at Municipal Grounds in Famona.
Carlmarx Nkomo, the interim Zimbabwe National Soccer Supporters’ Association Bulawayo wing chairman, said they are pleased to note that Bosso and Makepekepe supporters are facing off in a friendly social match that is meant to cement relations between the two teams.
“It is good to see supporters of rival teams involved in initiatives that are meant to cement relations between the two sides and show that despite emotions from highly supercharged games played by their teams, they can still find love and peace. Hooliganism has been a cancer in our domestic league but we believe that interactions by fans and creating relations outside the stadium makes it easier to fight in the same corner. Our hope is that such initiatives will continue even when the season starts and the challenge is for clubs to take the opportunity of such gatherings to preach the anti-hooliganism message,” said Nkomo.
Last season, Highlanders lost a significant amount of their prize money to fines caused by their fans who threw missiles during some of their games.
Highlanders’ prize for being losing quarterfinalists in the Chibuku Super Cup was $15 000 and for finishing fifth in the league they got $40 000. However, instead of getting a total of $55 000 for the two competitions, Bosso lost half of the prize money banking $27 000, with the bulk going to fines caused by some unrepentant fans.
Progress Ndlovu, a Highlanders fan who is part of the match organisers, said: “We just thought of having this match as a way of reaching out to each other and also promoting sporting relations amongst us fans. We have previously done that with Dynamos supporters and this time we thought of engaging our Caps United counterparts and they also embraced the idea.We believe such social gatherings will also help in mobilising support for our individual teams and also reduce hooliganism during matches.”
Caps United supporters’ representative Ellison Nhidza said: “There’s always that rivalry between the three big teams, Caps United, Dynamos and Highlanders. Even their matches are so tense on and off the field. However, we feel there’s a need to break that ice and at the end of the day soccer must unite us. We want to have fun and believe relationships established through such gatherings make it easier for us to unite for a purpose and spread the message of oneness when our teams play.” — @ZililoR