PSL announce partnership with SAPS

Cape Town - The Premier Soccer League (PSL) has announced a partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS) in an effort to eradicate violence and vandalism at stadiums.

The initiative between the two organisations comes at a time when pitch invasions at various stadiums across the country have become alarmingly more frequent.

Recent high-profile cases have seen, in one instance, fans invading the pitch to attack players and coaching staff in a fixture between Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Versveld.

On another occasion, Kaizer Chiefs fans invaded the Moses Mabhida Stadium pitch to attack players before later vandalising the stadium.

PSL chairperson, Irvin Khoza alongside Minister of Police, Bheki Cele announced the partnership at a press conference on Thursday saying that an increased number of police officers and safety officials will be employed to eradicate criminal acts at stadiums.

"We want football matches to be a go to place for families," Khoza said.

"So we need to eradicate certain people abusing alcohol and drugs in public places such as stadiums.

"The biggest failure of our country is that we are failing to manage ourselves, so we have come up with this partnership to mitigate criminal behaviour to make our stadiums safer."

"If we succeed in managing ourselves things would be so much easier for the police.

Police Minister Bheki Cele added that their aim was to make stadiums a family inclusive environment by increasing safety.

"We want to make sure that fans go to watch soccer matches under a blanket of security," Cele said.

"While making sure that we don't overwhelm supporters with more police than fans at stadiums.

"We need to work together to find a balance," he said.