Football safety can't be a game of chance

The scene was not one of celebration but of profound relief that a major tragedy was averted. The sight of a severely overcrowded venue, with fans spilling into standing areas before seated stands and precariously perched on corrugated iron rooftops, was a sorry and alarming spectacle. It was a stark warning that we are playing with fire, and the consequences of inaction are unthinkable. The ghost of Ellis Park Stadium looms large over such scenes. That disaster in South Africa is not a distant chapter from a foreign textbook; it is a heartbreaking lesson in the catastrophic failure of crowd management.

The images from last Friday suggest we are ignoring its lessons, risking a similar catastrophe on our own soil. To dismiss this as mere fan enthusiasm is a dangerous and irresponsible delusion. We must call this what it was: a systemic failure that could have ended in loss of life.