FROM ROMANUS UGWU, ABUJA

Related News

THE Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase has cau­tioned Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) against throwing the gate open to the fans another time the Super Eagles take on an opponent at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium, urg­ing them to regulate the spectators with high gate fees.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the 11 Biennial Police Games held in Abuja at the weekend, the IGP argued that the security agents decided to be civic in handling the crowd since they were there to cheer their darling team to victory.
While admonishing the Super Eagles to ensure it secured the maximum points against the Pha­raohs of Egypt in the return leg of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nation (AF­CON) qualifiers before their home crowd, he explained that his men in Kaduna did a good job to manage the crowd at the stadium which he described as ‘unprecedented’.
His words: “The crowd did not overwhelm the security; the idea is that the crowd was just too much for the space and we wanted people to come and cheer our people.
“The policemen on duty were not hard on the people because we must be civil in the way you manage people that have come to support and cheer your team. We should be able to make some restrictions next time to avoid over crowdedness. We shouldn’t open the gate for ev­erybody, if you do that you might be jeopardizing the security of the area,” Arase added.
On the game, he said: “We still have a lot of chances, the boys played well, the equalizer was a lit­tle slip and it is expected in a match like that, but I am sure that we are going to qualify,” he said.