Madam,

In more than 60 years of living, watching and enduring the many spectacles of this troubled world, I believed I had seen the full catalogue of human folly. I was wrong.

What unfolded at Mavuso Trade Centre yesterday (Sunday) was not sport, not rivalry, not even chaos. It was a disgraceful descent into mob savagery. A referee fleeing for his life as though he were prey and the crowd a pack of hunters tasting blood.

Let us not sanitise what happened. Let us not hide behind polite phrases like ‘crowd unrest’ or ‘fan misconduct.’Those are the coward’s vocabulary. What we witnessed was collective thuggery. It was a public exhibition of lawlessness dressed in football jerseys.

It was a stadium transformed into a hunting ground where a man tasked with enforcing rules became the target of a lawless mob that had abandoned reason, decency and shame. My God! What have we descended into as football lovers?

I stopped following local football in the 1990s because I saw the rot creeping in even then: The insults, the tribalism, the boiling hostility masquerading as loyalty. Back in those days, matches were social gatherings. Families attended together. Children waved flags. Elders debated tactics. The game united communities. Today, many terraces feel like pressure cookers primed for eruption, where the slightest refereeing decision can trigger volcanic rage.

We must ask ourselves a painful question: How did we fall this low?

Football was meant to be the people’s game: A 90-minute escape from hardship, a celebration of skill, a harmless battlefield where pride was settled by goals, not fists. Yet somewhere along the way, it mutated. It became a theatre of grievance. Supporters no longer watch matches; they stalk them, waiting for a moment to erupt. Referees are no longer officials; they are targets. The ball is no longer the centre of attention; anger is.

Also, where, pray, are the so-called custodians of the sport?

Statements have been issued. Condemnations have been typed. Promises have been made. We have heard it all before. Words, words, words - cheap, weightless and utterly useless. Football authorities must stop polishing press releases and start enforcing consequences. Discipline must be swift, visible and merciless. Suspensions. Bans. Lifetime exclusions. Stadium closures, if necessary. Anything less is complicity.

Because make no mistake: When violence goes unpunished, it is not contained - it is invited. Every act of leniency is a green light. Every delay is a signal. Every excuse is permission. If the perpetrators of this disgrace are not hunted down by the law and punished to the full extent it allows, then we are not dealing with sport administrators; we are dealing with enablers.

Passion is not violence. Loyalty is not intimidation. Support is not assault. Let us stop confusing barbarism with enthusiasm. A supporter who attacks an official is not a fan; he is a criminal in team colours.

What is most chilling is not that this happened. Mob behaviour is as old as civilisation. What is chilling is how easily it happened - how quickly order collapsed, how readily individuals dissolved into a faceless pack.

That is the true warning sign. When a crowd can transform into a mob in seconds, the problem is not a single match or a single referee. The problem is a culture that has grown tolerant of rage and allergic to restraint.

We used to pride ourselves on being a society of dignity, discipline and respect. We boasted that our games reflected our values. If that is still true, then the events at the stadium reflect something deeply rotten.

Shame! Not the quiet shame that whispers, but the loud shame that echoes.

May the referee recover from both the physical danger and the psychological terror he endured. May those responsible be identified, prosecuted and barred from every sporting venue in the country.

And may administrators finally realise that if they do not act now, decisively and publicly, the next incident will not end with a man escaping. The next one may end with a tragedy none of us can explain away.

Football is a game. It is not a battlefield. It is not a court of revenge. It is certainly not a licence for mob justice.

If we cannot protect a referee in a stadium full of spectators, then we must confront a darker truth: the problem is no longer football. The problem is us.

What unfolded at Mavuso Trade Centre yesterday (Sunday) was not sport, not rivalry, not even chaos. It was a disgraceful descent into mob savagery.