Striker Trésor Mputu Mabi
Skipper of DRC TP Mazembe (Lubumbashi)
“Ran amok at Kigali Amahoro Stadium”
I got five separate frantic calls from family members and friends in Bukavu, Kinshasa and Kisangani this Saturday, May 22.
Here’s the low-down I got from the confused narrative of my frantic callers:
1) The Congolese team TP Mazembe was playing in Kigali against Rwandan team APR FC;
2) APR was leading by 1-nil;
3) Then, still in the first half, TP Mazembe scored an equalizer, a goal the referee dismissed for no apparent reason—“the referee was systematically siding with the Rwandans,” one caller insisted;
4) As the match resumed, an APR player viciously tackled a TP Mazembe player, but the referee didn’t call out the foul;
5) As TP Mazembe skipper Trésor Mputu was protesting this unjust refereering, he was shown the red card;
6) Then all hell broke loose in the stadium, Rwandan cops were set upon Congolese players to beat them up, and TP Mazembe winger/midfielder Guy Lusadisu Basisila was “disappeared” by Rwandan police;
7) The match was then stopped, the Congolese players placed under house arrest, and the whereabouts of Guy Lusadisu Basisila were unknown!
I knew that this account was massively biased. The Congolese and Rwandan governments could sign up a zillion peace deals, there’s simply bad blood between the two nations since Africa’s World War. Time has to pass, then maybe… maybe!
I went to the official website of TP Mazembe where I got this cryptic chronology that at the very least cleared the issue of the “whereabouts unknown” of Guy Lusadisu Basisila:
“CECAFA CUP 2010
APR FC-TP Mazembe
Saturday, May 22, 2010
[Streaming word banners in red fonts:] Guy Lusadisu freed; All the players and the technical staff will be expelled from Rwandan territory; They leave Kigali this Sunday at 3 a.m.;
[Then followed a laconic chronology of the game:]
[1] 17:00 [Kigali time]: Beginning of the match
[2] 33’: APR scores
[3] 38’: Match stopped after the goal scored by [midfielder Dioko] Kaluyituka isn’t counted as he’s flagged down as being offside
Red card to Trésor Mputu
[4] 18:00: Match stopped for good”Wow! What a shame!
TP [Tout-Puissant; or All-Powerful] Mazembe, formerly known as “Tout-Puissant Englebert” is one of the oldest teams of the Congo, having been established in 1939. It has won CAF Champions League cup several times, including last year. The chairman of TP Mazembe is the millionaire governor of Katanga, Moïse Katumbi. APR FC, or in its full French name, “Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Football Club,” though started as football team in 1992 when the RPF was a rebel outfit and despite its still being sponsored by the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, is now a full-fledged civilian team of the Primus National League (the Premier league of Rwanda) with civilian management. Matches pitting TP Mazembe against their archrival APR FC have always been contentious.
The uncanniness of the matter is that, like many DRC professionals in other fields, Congolese professional footballers swallow their nationalistic pride to flock to Kigali for good and steady pay in the professional teams of the Rwandan premier league. The APR FC team has at least 5 Congolese players in its squad. And last time I checked, APR FC coach was the Congolese Kinois Andy M’Futila. Things get even weirder when one realizes that the TP Mazembe “disappeared” midfielder Guy Lusadisu used to play for APR FC. [UPDATE: Just read the account of the game on Kigali New Times that confirms the uncanny "point" I'm making here: "APR was leading 1-0 courtesy of Kabange Twite’s 34th minute strike." Both Kabange Twite and his brother Mbuyu Twite, who also plays for APR FC, are Congolese]
The “disappeared” TP Mazembe winger/midfielder Guy Lusadisu Basisila
(Credits)
(Credits)
Anyway, to get a full and balanced narrative of the incident, I went to the sports section of Nairobi Daily Nation where the article “Drama unfolds as Mazembe star attacks ref” filed from Kigali shortly after the interrupted match by Kenyan reporter Gishinga-Njoroge fleshed out the outlines I got from relatives, friends and the website of TP Mazembe:
“Skipper Mputu runs amok after being shown red card against APR
Disturbing scenes were witnessed in the Cecafa Kagame Cup Club Championship here on Saturday when a TP Mazembe player ran amok after being shown the red card, attacking the match referee and forcing police to swing into action and apprehend him.
The melee unfolded in the 38th minute when Mazembe skipper Tresor Mputu Mabi was sent off for the first time after he tried to kick the referee following a failed appeal for a foul when a TP Mazembe player appeared to be unfairly tackled.
Mputu then went berserk and started fighting the referee after being shown the red card, forcing police to move onto the pitch as TP Mazembe players mobbed and beat up the referee in ugly scenes never seen anywhere in Cecafa tournaments.
Cecafa is a tournament that is not under the Confederation of African Football (CAF) management and TP Mazembe are guests here.
Otherwise this would have been an unprecedented crime with serious consequences. It was not known at press time whether the last match of Group ‘A’ between Mazembe and Rwanda’s soldier club, APR, would continue at Kigali’s Amahoro stadium.
The two teams had played here before in the deciding match of the African Champions League preliminary knock-outs, a match APR won 1-0 but lost 2-0 in return in Lubumbashi, seeing Mazembe through to the group phase that starts next month.”
Well, as the chronology on the website of TP Mazembe shows, the match was interrupted for good and the Congolese team kicked out of the country after the mayhem! I don’t think reporter Gishinga-Njoroge is right about what the consequences of the melee would be obtain for TP Mazembe. CAF is a FIFA member, and the match in Kigali was part of “a tournament of FIFA and the Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA).”
So either way you look at it, there are bound to be consequences for the Congolese—a hefty price indeed to be paid by TP Mazembe.
CECAFA is the oldest football association of Africa that started in 1926 and ran through as “Gossage Cup” till 1966, then it turned into the “East and Central African Senior Challenge Cup” until 1971 when it took on its current incarnation. CECAFA member countries are: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, (the football federation of) Zanzibar, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and Djibouti. As mentioned in Gishinga-Njoroge’s report, DRC TP Mazembe was in Kigali as guest team at the CECAFA Kagame Cup Rwanda 2010 (May 15-May 29).
What TP Mazembe did in Kigali goes down in African football history as a real shame indeed, an insult to the sporting spirit of football, particularly as they started well on Sunday, May 17, when they did “run down Djibouti Telecom” by 8-nil.
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