Esperience’s history of fan violence may lead to closed-door Sundowns playoff

THE Confederation of African Football must urgently and decisively following crowd violence during Tuesday’s match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Esperance of Tunisia at Loftus in Pretoria.

- HERMAN GIBBS

The Tunisian club has a troubling history of quarter-final misconduct over the years. Early signs are that CAF may enforce a closed-door policy for next week’s return match with Esperance host Sundowns in Tunisia.

It was an approach CAF previously adopted for matches after the games were plagued by violence by Esperance supporters.

In March 2022, the Disciplinary Board of the Confederation of African Football ordered Esperance to host their next two matches behind closed doors.

The CAF statement at the time referred to an offence in the previous season and the fourth ban was suspended. There were for the unacceptable and recurrent behaviour of their supporters. The offences referred to sanctions for offence during the CAF Champions League 2020/2021 semi-final against Al Ahly of Egypt.

The “recurrent” behaviour would also have reflected on the host of sanctions imposed on Esperance following incidents during their March 2018 encounter against Zamalek in the Champions quarter-final.