Royal AM president Shauwn ‘Ma’ Mkhize has detailed the hostile treatment she and her players have received during their trip to TP Mazembe.
The DStv Premiership side lost 2-0 in the CAF Confederations Cup play-offs first leg at the Stade du TP Mazembe on Wednesday, with Mkhize taking to Instagram after her side’s trip to reveal she’s never experienced such a “hostile crowd” without going much into details.
This publication then contacted Mkhize to ask her about what happened in Lubumbashi because Royal AM have become the latest South African club to receive bad treatment during their trip to the five-time CAF Champions league winners after AmaZulu last year.
To bring you all details, we’ve typed out the conversation between our journalist David Kappel and Mkhize.
DK: Shauwn, please tell our readers what really happened in Lubumbashi.
SM: “I felt like I was surrounded by bushmen. People there were taking their clothes off, getting into the stadium. I felt like I was in a circus, not in a football stadium. They were strangling my technical team, they were strangling my players on the pitch, no cards were issued. They were pulling my players when they were going to score goals, no cards were issued. They were taking my kit managers at the change rooms, hitting them, literally hitting them. I’ve never seen anything like this. Burning fires on the VIP [section]. I went to the match commissioner and I said ‘haibo…’. My goalkeeper was under surge from the first 10 minutes when we were really pressing them high and playing. They started throwing missiles on him, shooting him with those small slings. I don’t know, South Africa is very good, David. I’ve never seen such.”
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DK: That sounds hectic…
SM: “What helps me and keeps me sane was to get my speakers. My camera people and everyone else they had to rise and they were standing where I was standing because I was playing my speaker and I was ignoring them. I just playing my speaker, dancing to my music and ignoring everything they were doing and just focussing on the match. Even my physical trainer was scared to get onto the field when one of our players was down and injured – that’s how hostile it was.”
DK: Will this treatment have any impact of how you will welcome Mazembe in South Africa?
SM: “What they’ve done, they’ve made us mentally strong. I must tell you the other thing that surprises me. You know at the stadium, the only female, was me and my PA. The rest were men, bushmen. They were taking off their clothes… You know the driver that was our driver, he is a Congolese. Because he came with us, so he was trying to support us, clap hands with us. When we were giving it to them, when we were on top of them, they were starting to hit him.”
DK: Oh no. We always treat visiting teams with much respect when they come to South Africa.
SM: “The owner of TP Mazembe, he is a business person, he sounds like a business men, how does he condone such things? You know here in South Africa, we always have security act the stadium to make sure everyone is save. There, the security they carry big guns but they are doing nothing… We need to have these games on tv, because I’m not sure if these things will happen on tv.”
DK: I saw some pictures on your social channels and everything looked peacefully.
SM: “The only thing that makes our lives easy is that we charter to the game and we get there a day before at night, or in the afternoon. So we don’t see there hostility. And when we enter the stadium because TP Mazembe is a big club, I think they’ve underestimated us. They’ve only realised when we entered the field of play, ‘oh these people can play’. That’s when things changed now. I think before the game played they were like ‘oh, we’re gonna give these ones 10-0.”
DK: Thanks Shauwn, for sharing your experience with iDiski Times. We need to tell our readers and the powers at CAF about these stories.
Story by David Kappel (@kappilinho).
