Scenes resembling a war zone at the Molepolole Sports Complex hardly suggested any beauty. Blood on the track, women sobbing uncontrollably, near lifeless bodies lying all over was not a beautiful sight. Pele should have been referring to another game not the one witnessed in Molepolole on Saturday night.
Negligence is fast creeping into the local game
Saturday's events were a stunning example of negligence. The Botswana Premier League fixtured the two crowd-pullers at night. It was clear that the match - pitting two clubs, which won the two pieces of silverware on offer last season - was going to attract a large crowd. What happened in Molepolole was a culmination of persistent poor planning around crowd control. Signals were there in previous matches that it was only a matter of time before the situation exploded. Tragic events have in the recent past been recorded in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ghana but last weekend there was a reminder that negligence has crept into the local game. Joe Russo's quote, 'This was not an act of God. The negligence is pretty clear-cut,' sums up Saturday night's events.
