The post-primary football tournament in Lira will resume without fans following clashes between the two schools.
On March 20, there were clashes between students of Lira Town college and Lango College secondary school just hours after the official launch and first game of the tournament. The attack left three students nursing serious injuries and 58 students arrested.
The tournament was suspended to avert further clashes. On Monday, the Lira City security issued stringent measures ahead of the resumption of the tournament.
According to the measures, all games must end before 6 pm on weekdays, each participating school should have a delegation of not more than 30 people including players and school officials.
The other measures are that no school will be allowed to engage in a procession to the playground and failure. The security team also directed that the games should be played only at Akii-Bua playground and that the fixtures and time for the games will only be communicated to the teams a few hours before the game starts.
Lawrence Emmy Egole, the Resident City Commission says the measures are meant to deter students from misbehaving.
“The hooliganism which happened should not be repeated and schools are therefore required to restrict themselves to the above conditions in order to maintain sanity during the tournament.”
Bob Innocent Odil, the game teacher at Lango College believes that the new measures will most likely affect their management of the games despite their high level of preparedness.
Eric Ogwal, the games teacher at Lira Town College is optimistic that the new conditions will not affect them in any way because his players are used to playing without fans.
The organizers are expected to meet the City Internal Security Officers and District Police Commanders from both City East and City West divisions before the commencement of the tournament and agree on the new measures.