Minister of Sports, Youth, Arts and Child Development, Elvis Nkandu has expressed shock with the ugly scenes witnessed during Sunday’s Kitwe derby.
Nkandu said in an interview after the match that he had never seen such ugly scenes and was shocked at the extent some unruly fans reached damaging public property.
Nkandu revealed that over 500 seats had been uprooted by suspected Nkana fans after a penalty was awarded to Power Dynamos in the dying minutes of Sunday’s Kitwe derby.
“Firstly we were very excited to come and watch the Kitwe derby but I think we are so very much disappointed with the turn of events. The game was good, they played fairly well until we had to start seeing ugly scenes when Power was given a penalty and Nkana fans including the players, which is something I am very shocked with, were very indiscipline,” he said.
“But I think talking about the damage that Nkana fans have caused is uncalled for, the ugly scenes that we have witnessed here, I am also a witness of what obtained here. Even when you have a grievance you can’t get to a point where you start destroying your own property.”
“This infrastructure you see here is the only one we have, if we damage this one also we will have nothing to talk about because Heroes Stadium is still under reconstruction. Government is grappling with putting up Sports infrastructure and some citizens are busy destroying it. Surely do we really know what we are doing? I have never seen such an ugly scene that we witnessed at Mwanawasa Stadium, where people started uprooting chairs, and from our preliminary investigation more than 500 chairs have been uprooted,” Nkandu added.
Nkandu has appealed to the soccer fans to stop this behavior which he termed unZambian of damaging infrastructure.
“Am appealing to all soccer fans, this is unZambian, where are we coping this behavior of damaging your own property, this is unsportsmanlike, and the Government will not tolerate such,” he said.
Power Dynamos were awarded a late penalty after Prince Mumba was brought down in the box which suspected Nkana fans felt was not the case and started throwing missiles on the pitch.
The Levy Mwanawasa Stadium suffered significant damage with seats uprooted and thrown onto the stadium runway.
After a short halt of play, Brian Masanyinga converted from the spot to cancel out Jacob Ngulube’s opener as the two teams shared the spoils.
