24 Jan 2018

Ugly scenes of mass brawling spoiled what was an entertaining BTC Premiership encounter between log-leaders Township Rollers and an enterprising Tafic at the University of Botswana (UB) Stadium on Tuesday night.

The embarrassing brawling which brought unwanted shame to local football, happened inside the pitch four minutes before the end of regulation time with the match evenly poised.

Onkemetse Powe scored his third goal in three matches to hand Tafic a 19th-minute lead, but Rollers fought back and levelled matters in the 76th-minute through a disputed Lemponye Tshireletso spot-kick after Joel Mogorosi was adjudged to have been fouled inside the penalty area.

Rollers maintained their place at the summit with 40 points from 17 matches while Tafic have 20 points from 17 matches.

Tafic players and the technical team felt hard done by several refereeing decisions throughout the match and assistant coach Pogiso Mmusi was dismissed for comments he made in one of their remonstrations in the second half.

The match turned spiky and crunching tackles started flying after Rollers were awarded a penalty which the Tafic players complained was soft.

A Tafic defender committed a foul in a dangerous area towards the end of the match and before the free-kick could be taken, fourth official Leteng Magowe spotted an off the ball incident between Tafic defender Samuel Phiri and Rollers substitute Mthokosizi Msomi and alerted referee Ben Mpete who showed Phiri a straight red card.

Phiri appeared to smack Rollers midfielder Edwin Moalosi while leaving the field and a massive brawl followed between the two teams, with members of both technical teams also entering the fight.

After the match officials had restored calm, the referee brandished straight red cards to South African striker Msomi and Mogorosi as well as Tafic coach Rapelang Tsatsilebe for their roles in the altercation.

Tafic technical manager Carlos Motaung blamed the referee for the unsavory incidents that spoiled the encounter.

Motaung said the refereeing was ‘terrible’ on the night.

“This was caused by our referees. If they could have been fair to everybody I don’t think this chaos we saw would have happened.

It is embarrassing to see players fighting in front of referees in a Premier League match between two big teams like Tafic and Rollers. Like I am saying, this thing could not have happened if we had fair refereeing,” Motaung fumed after the match, advising football administrators to address the issue of bad refereeing.

Motaung said Tafic did not condone ill-discipline from their players.

“Our player who fought on the field, we cannot condone that, it is not a good thing. Even our coaches to have collected red cards, it is so unprofessional.

I think it is something as Tafic we will have to sit down with them. I expect to see them as leaders when they are on the bench with players,” Motaung said.

Rollers coach Nikola Kavazovic said his team wasted four good opportunity to win the match. Despite his team still leading the table by a healthy margin Kavazovic said their declining performance over the last four league encounter showed that they were in a crisis.

“We are in crisis and I have one day tomorrow to solve the situation and to bring the team where it belongs beginning with the Mascom semifinal,” Kavazovic said. ENDS