Rugby fans

Rugby Fans

 I myself was shocked to see the footage of a fan fight that broke about between Stormers supporters and south African Crusader supporters at Newlands a few weeks ago. It just isn’t right that rugby a sport enjoyed worldwide has to be polluted by spectators violence..if you watch the Youtube footage it is absolutely shocking the way these people acted, and the worst part is it is seen worldwide and the name of south African rugby is being tarnished by these incidents, not to mention the incident where a Rebels fan was killed by a group of men after a Sharks and Rebels game outside Kings Park Stadium.

Stormers Supporters

One of the factors involved is the sale of alcohol at stadiums which is the norm at social sports events like this, but could also be pouring petrol onto a already blazing fire, especially if tensions are getting higher from either side. In this case it was the fact that Stormers supporters who are locals were getting agitated by Crusader supporters who are also locals.

My real concern is where were the security staff who are supposed to deal with situations like this before it gets out of hand the way that it did. If you watch the footage you will see that during entire time that this chaos unfolded the security staff to deal with the situation were not on scene until much later when the damage had already been done, which i feel is an absolute necessity during sports events where everybody knows that tensions will be high, and the sale of alcohol is permitted.

If you have ever watched a English Premiership Game, you will have noticed that there are so many security staff on the pitch side watching spectators, making sure that fights don’t break out, and when they do you would have also have seen that the security staff move extremely fast to cool the situation down. The reason for this is that fan fights are a common occurance in soccer and are happening more frequently than in rugby.



Security at a Chelsea game

Unfortunately the fan fight epidemic has now started to spread over to the sport of rugby. And it is time that Unions start to realise this problem and increase security at games to prevent incidents of this nature occurring again.

Understandably costs to increase security staff is expensive but shouldn’t the lives of spectators be worth the sacrifice of Unions digging into their coffers to provide a secure venue where friends and families can enjoy the atmosphere that these sporting events bring us.

Prevention is better than a cure!!