The death of a young football player in Blantyre, while celebrating Nyasa Big Bullets\u2019 Carlsberg Cup victory on their way from Lilongwe, should be a lesson to the soccer fraternity.<\/p>\n
On Sunday evening, the darkest day had just been scripted in a matter of minutes and the wound that will never heal inflicted in a matter of moments, on the family of this young footballer Raphael Nkhoma.<\/p>\n
A convoy carrying Bullets players, officials and supporters was on its way from Lilongwe and they had whistle-stops along the 315-kilometre stretch of M1 road where they displayed their trophy to the fans.<\/p>\n
They had all the reasons to celebrate as the team laboured to upstage resolute Be Forward Wanderers in post-match penalties on that Saturday afternoon at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe after they came from behind twice.<\/p>\n
As the game staggered into the final stages, it was clear that Wanderers were going to lose because technically, Bullets looked much more superior.<\/p>\n
This excited a lot of people including children who thronged the road to join the celebration but conspicuously absent from the scene were traffic police officers who were supposed to regulate traffic.<\/p>\n
It is unfortunate that a young enterprising footballer decided to join the party at Kameza Round-about in Blantyre where he was run over by a vehicle.<\/p>\n
Blantyre City Council has accused Bullets of not involving them in their parade as required by the law while the People\u2019s Team\u2019s General Secretary, Alfred Chigoga, said this was not a parade.<\/p>\n
For Chigoga to be telling us that the Bullets\u2019 triumphant entry into Blantyre City was a parade by default when we all know the reality would be considered offensive and out of place especially considering that an innocent soul was lost.<\/p>\n
It is a fact; there are so many rotten things that happen in football but most of the times officials go away scot free.<\/p>\n
Although Chigoga argues that this was not a parade and therefore could not involve the police, logic demands that any gathering needs security presence to avert fatal eventualities.<\/p>\n
If Bullets did not want to involve the public in their celebrations then they could have come back to Blantyre quietly, I mean without any pomp.<\/p>\n
I find it disturbing and irritating that we can afford to lose a life of such an emerging talent because of sheer carelessness.<\/p>\n
In fact this parade, which Chigoga has decided to call a parade by default, inconvenienced a lot of people and brought business in Blantyre to a standstill.<\/p>\n
It is my sincere hope that next time things will be planned properly to avoid such tragedy and chaos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The death of a young football player in Blantyre, while celebrating Nyasa Big Bullets\u2019 Carlsberg Cup victory on their way from Lilongwe, should be a lesson to the soccer fraternity. On Sunday evening, the darkest day had just been scripted in a matter of minutes and the wound that will never heal inflicted in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53580,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53577\/revisions\/53580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}