Pitch violence taken too far?

• The culprit: Coach Napari

If you offer a knee-jerk solution to a nagging prob­lem, it would always come to haunt you.

Suffice to say, we have not seriously tackled the disturbing issue of hooliganism over the years. We have taken things for granted and we continue to suffer for it. Is it because we are not directly affected by the carnage that comes with such violence?

Only last week, a female Referee Sakina Nasara Abdul Rahman, was brutally assaulted by Coach Iddrisu S. Napari during a Women’s Division 1B League match in Tamale. As a result of the sadistic act, the injured referee had to be hospitalised at the Tamale Teaching Hospital. Simply cruel!

This is has been the worrying cycle of violence we have had to en­dure painfully at the various league centres – year in year out, even though this case of a coach assaulting a female referee is an uncommon sight until recently.

It goes without saying that one lady referee was also attacked by a coach at Kwaebibirem a fortnight ago in the Eastern region. Ghanaians, however, are more used to seeing fans attack knights of the whistle.

As they say it, violence is violence – it does not matter where it comes from – and who perpetrated it.

Truth is that the absence of active prosecution for such rampant acts of indiscipline and violence has served to embolden the perpetrators. After all, they know that nothing will happen to them even if they are ap­prehended by the police. For them, there is nothing to be scared of. That is the most agonising aspect of it – seeing culprits get off the hook.

Draconian measures must be taken harsh to deal with these irredeemable and usually shameless scoundrels.

Many have also suggested that football stakeholders – spearheaded by the Ghana Football Association (GFA), must austerely chase an agen­da for a sports violence and crimes bill to be advanced in Parliament and passed at the first possible opportu­nity.

The said bill must necessarily include the establishment of a fast-track sports court to ensure that such incorrigibles are prosecuted and gaoled.

In this vein, club owners and administrators – whose club officials and fans perpetrate the violence, must for once join the crusade and put this harrowing issue to bed.

It is heart-warming to know that the Northern Regional Football Asso­ciation (NRFA), the Ghana Football Association, and the Ghana Police have worked together to ensure the coach’s arrest and subsequent pros­ecution. But it must not end there. If for nothing at all, this barefaced coach must be used as scapegoat to serve as a deterrent to all potential offenders.

PlainTalk with John Vigah