APR ought to learn to lose fairly

No pun intended. For so long, I’ve insisted that APR, like Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, are bad losers—they’ll always find something or someone to blame for every defeat. Granted, no one wants to lose, actually if your have no fear for losing, you cannot win and if you don’t win, you end up losing—yet sport, particularly football is not about winning and losing, it goes beyond those two lines. They say that clubs take on the qualities of their coach; APR and Arsenal are no different. Wenger’s team may play some of the most sophisticated football in Europe, but like their manager, when victory becomes defeat their mood turns sour. Fans including the Gooners themselves and the rivals have grown used to Wenger whining in defeat like a spoiled child who’s had his lollipop snatched. Back at home, APR fans must also learn to get used to the hysterical grumbling whenever their team loses especially on the continent. After that infamous Champions League first round return leg tie against Togolese side Maranatha de Fiokpo two years ago in Togo, APR players were at it again the other week against Egyptian opponents, Haras El Hodoud this time in the Caf Confederations Cup. Under the stewardship of Congolese coach Andy Mfutila in 2007, APR players and officials got involved an ugly on-field battle with their Maranatha counterparts—the match played in Wome, a remote Togolese town instead of Lome, ended three minutes premature. The visitors stormed off the field three minutes from the end of the match to protest a penalty awarded against them. It was the second penalty given against them inside two minutes. The military side had won the first leg 2-0 in Kigali and were level on aggregate (2-2) with their Togolese hosts Maranatha when the spot kick was awarded in the 87th minute. APR players refused to allow the Togo team to take the kick, prompting the referee to call off the game. Consequently, defenders Aloua Gaseruka and Patrick Mafisango were handed a six-month bans while Boubakary Saddou was banned for a year, all for physically assaulting the match referee. After that infamous Champions League clash, APR were handed a three-year suspension from participating in Caf-sanctioned competitions for walking off the pitch before the end of the match. However, the military side appealed against the punishment and it was overturned less than two months later but the damage had already been done and the Togolese side progressed to the next stage, leaving APR to rue another missed chance to impress on the continent. As if they (APR players and officials) didn’t draw any lessons from that ugly incidence in Togo, they repeated almost the same thing of confronting the referee in aggressive manner at the final whistle in their 2-0 loss against El Hodoud. Having failed to win the first leg at home, APR needed something special to get past the Egyptian opponents but it wasn’t to be as they went down to two good strikes in either half hence elimination at the first round. Fine, they may have felt cheated by the Moroccan officials but, as a football club, APR must learn to draw a line between winning, losing and the way they react every time they feel cheated—not only in sports or football but even in normal life, taking the law in one’s hand is unacceptable and indefensible. Football is a sport of passion and emotion but if you let yourself to get caught between the two, you may end up doing things that you could regret for ever as Saddou, Gaseruka, Mafisango can testify. Did APR score and the referee cancelled the goal or did they he award the hosts a dubious penalty? If the answer to these questions is no, then why did APR players having a go at the referee at full time? Under Jean Marie Ntagwabira, Andy Mfutila, Rene Feller, it was always a case finding someone or something to blame for APR’s every defeat—the referees were often in the firing line and the trend is threatening to spill over to the new man in charge, Erik Paske. For the Maranatha incidence, we didn’t get the chance to see the footage of what happened and the truth will never be known as to whether APR players and officials got physical and fought running battles but at least, we got to see what happened in Alexandria courtesy of Rwanda television, who showed the recorded match although it came a week after it was played. The incidence in Alexandria was nowhere near that in Wome and even though no APR player touched the Moroccan match officials, but they (officials) needed a ring of guards around after the match as Paske’s boys squabbled trying to get an explanation ‘as to why they had lost’! It was a bad picture. Where was the respect for referees? Isn’t there another way you could have expressed your feelings at your percevived was bad refereeing? What do you think? Are APR the worst losers in local football? nku78@yahoo.com