Namboole: Pay attention to crowd management

We have been on the brink of the stampede at a football event for a very long time but always avoided disaster.

It’s sheer luck and not out of planning that we go to the stadium and return home alive and unscathed.

Every big sports event at the country’s prime football facility – the Mandela National Stadium, Namboole – is a scene of chaos at the gates.

The past week has again highlighted the fuss that is our management of entrance into games.

Namboole hosted three games in five days, which is in itself a commendable feat since not too long ago, the stadium was deemed unfit by international bodies.

Following the renovation that cost Shs96b, passed in supplementary expenditure by Parliament, Namboole is alive again.

In addition to the national football team – Uganda Cranes – hosting Congo Brazzaville there, Kenya and Zimbabwe are set to use it as their home.

The pair, just like Uganda Cranes prior to the renovation of Namboole, do not have stadiums within their borders that meet international standards.

When Kenya hosted Zimbabwe, the stadium was near-empty. This gave way to the chaos that followed as Uganda beat Congo 2-0 and Zimbabwe’s goalless draw with Cameroon.

In both cases, fans struggled to get into the stadium despite having match tickets.

In the first case, the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) have tried to push fans to buy tickets online weeks prior to the game.

The uptake is still low because it’s not been easy to wean people off physical tickets that we have been used to.

Then, there is a challenge of access routes to the stadium that are normally packed with traffic jams on match day that sees tens of thousands of fans arrive at Namboole at the same time.

As kickoff nears, the adrenalin rises and there is a mad rush at the gates that often sees many fans get in free of charge or security pushing back.

Then came the second game that saw Manchester United and Cameroon goalkeeper Andre Onana play at Namboole for the first time.

Tickets had only been sold at the stadium website with Zimbabwe, as hosts, the only ones preoccupied with the game.

Everyone seemed to have underestimated the occasion that saw more than 20,000 fans access the venue.

Many had no tickets and pushed through one of the gates to catch a glimpse of a player they have only seen on television many times before.

It was worse as he exited the stadium as many wanted to touch Onana, who had to be whisked out of the stadium in utter chaos.

Next month, Uganda host South Sudan while Kenya has Onana and Cameroon visiting, shall we be better prepared than we have been?