SAPS officers confront AS FAR supporters in the stands at Loftus Versfeld Stadium during the CAF Champions League final first leg on Sunday 17 May 2026. Photo:@snap_vino on x
On Sunday evening, South African Police Service officers were forced to fire spray canisters at AS FAR supporters inside Loftus Versfeld Stadium during the CAF Champions League final first leg between Mamelodi Sundowns and the Moroccan club. Photographs confirmed the confrontation. The match was also marred by a VAR breakdown and controversy over the referee appointment. Sundowns won 1-0.
South Africans are asking a question that the continent’s football administrators seem determined to avoid. Why does this keep happening — and why does nobody say so directly?
A Pattern That Cannot Be Dismissed as Coincidence
Tonight’s scenes at Loftus Versfeld did not occur in a vacuum. They are part of a well-documented and recurring pattern of crowd behaviour linked to North African football that has played out across multiple CAF competitions this season alone.
Earlier in the 2025/26 CAF Champions League season, AS FAR players and staff were violently targeted by bottle-throwing from Al Ahly supporters in Cairo during their continental fixture. AS FAR themselves were the victims in that instance and rightly complained to CAF. Tonight, their own supporters were the ones requiring police intervention in Pretoria.
At the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final — one of African football’s most prestigious occasions — scenes unfolded that should have prompted serious institutional reflection. Supporters attempted to storm the field. Players scuffled on the sidelines. Journalists from the two competing nations fought in the media area. Moroccan ball boys were caught on camera deliberately attempting to seize a towel being used by Senegalese goalkeeper Edouard Mendy — an act of deliberate interference designed to disrupt a penalty shootout in a continental final. CAF subsequently stripped Senegal of the title they had won on the pitch and handed it to Morocco on appeal — a decision currently being challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
That is three separate high-profile incidents involving North African football clubs and their supporters — across multiple competitions, multiple countries and multiple contexts — within a single season. And yet the conversation around African football supporter behaviour consistently fails to name this pattern directly.
When Last Did South African Supporters Do This?
It is a question worth asking plainly. When last did South African football supporters travel to a CAF fixture in another African country and require police intervention? When last did a South African club’s supporters throw bottles at opposing players? When last did South African ball boys deliberately interfere with an opposing goalkeeper in a continental final?
The answer is that this is not something South African football supporters are known for. Sub-Saharan African football fans have their own challenges — crowd safety, stadium infrastructure and local rivalries among them — but the export of supporter violence and deliberate gamesmanship to other African countries is not a pattern associated with South African, Ghanaian, Nigerian, Kenyan or Tanzanian football culture in the way it has become associated with certain North African fan bases at continental competitions.
This is not a comfortable observation to make. But it is an honest one. And it is one that African football administrators, commentators and journalists have largely refused to make directly — preferring instead to speak in generalities about African football needing to improve its image, without naming where the most persistent and documented problems are actually occurring.
The Double Standard That South Africans Have Noticed
South Africa has spent the better part of the past month being lectured about xenophobia. Anti-illegal immigration protests in Pretoria and Johannesburg — which were largely peaceful — were reported internationally as violent xenophobic attacks. A Nigerian billionaire used an international business forum to criticise South Africa’s immigration enforcement. Think pieces proliferated about South Africa’s hostility toward other Africans.
And yet on Sunday evening, supporters from a North African country came to South Africa and caused enough trouble at a football stadium to require police intervention. The same international commentators who are quick to label South Africa’s immigration enforcement as xenophobic will have very little to say about this. There will be no think pieces. There will be no lectures about North African football culture needing to reflect on its relationship with the rest of the continent. CAF will issue a statement that says very little and means even less.
South Africans have noticed this double standard. They are tired of walking on eggshells when they observe behaviour that would attract immediate and sustained criticism if it were associated with sub-Saharan African nations. The rules of continental solidarity and African unity should apply equally — or they should not be invoked selectively against South Africa when it suits a particular narrative.
CAF Must Act
The Confederation of African Football has a responsibility that it has consistently failed to meet when it comes to crowd behaviour linked to North African clubs at continental competitions. The organisation has shown it is willing to use its disciplinary processes aggressively when it suits — the retrospective stripping of Senegal’s AFCON title being the most recent and egregious example. That same energy must be applied to the investigation and sanctioning of supporter behaviour that brings the game into disrepute regardless of which country the supporters come from.
If CAF investigates tonight’s incidents at Loftus Versfeld and concludes that no meaningful sanction is warranted, South African football supporters and administrators will have every right to question whether the organisation’s disciplinary processes are applied consistently across the continent — or whether, as has long been suspected, North African football enjoys a form of institutional protection within CAF that sub-Saharan clubs and their supporters do not.
Sundowns Deserve Better
On the pitch on Sunday evening, Mamelodi Sundowns produced a disciplined and professional performance that gave them a 1-0 lead heading into the second leg in Rabat. Aubrey Modiba’s free-kick was a moment of genuine quality. The team fought hard despite significant defensive injuries and delivered exactly the result their preparation deserved.
They deserved to do so in a stadium where the match — not the crowd behaviour — was the story. Instead, the images that will circulate from Sunday’s final are not of Modiba’s goal. They are of SAPS officers confronting supporters in the stands of a South African stadium during a continental final. That is not acceptable. And it should be said so — directly, without apology and without the careful diplomatic language that has allowed this pattern to continue unchallenged for far too long.
Editors Note This is an opinion piece representing the views of the Mzansi Today Live editorial team. All factual claims regarding crowd incidents at CAF competitions are based on publicly available reports and official CAF records at the time of publication. The views expressed do not represent those of any political party or organisation.