The 2025/26 Kenya Premier League, officially now known as the SportPesa League, kicked off this past weekend.
Yet it seems, just weeks later, both fans and clubs took no lessons from the CHAN 2024 tournament, which was successfully hosted in Nairobi.
In a disturbing incident on Sunday, September 21, chaotic secenes were witnessed at the Kasarani Stadium after Gor Mahia fans attempted to force their way in to watch their team take on Bidco United.
As a Gor Mahia fan who was there, I believe the blame squarely falls on the club.
How can you have only two ticket scanners for such a fixture? And how do you deploy personnel who looked confused; either they weren’t trained well or they feared dealing with Gor Mahia FC fans?
During CHAN matches, ticket scanning was conducted from the first gate to the stadium to minimise crowding. Why was management so clueless?
I understand they want e-ticketing to fail so they can bring back manual ticketing, allowing them to pilfer gate remittances.
Again, why are security officers assigned to K’ogalo matches always ‘spoiling for a fight’? A small commotion results in tear gas being fired at fans, without considering that some of us came with children.
Apart from a few incidents, the CHAN security team appeared professional, sympathetic, and understanding. Bwana, stop scaring new faces being introduced to this game. Some of us are used to this, but newly recruited fans may never set foot in a stadium again.
As for Kenyan football fans, are we so accustomed to chaos that we’ve refused to learn? There’s a group of fans I heard claiming that 300 bob is too much for gate entry. Why come to the stadium knowing full well you won’t pay the entrance fee?
When CHAN was ongoing, we were able to be seated as early as two hours before kickoff; we even stayed overnight to buy tickets to avoid inconvenience on matchday. Now, because it’s your local team playing, you can’t replicate the same behaviour and want to blame Ambrose Rachier and Sally Bolo. Simple etiquette.
The next match for Gor Mahia FC is against Sofapaka Familia on Saturday, September 27th from 16:00 hrs; may we all behave.
