It's Witchcraft

Almost certainly not how it happened

Wicked witchcraft. Although, you know, it's strictly taboo, people still try to practice it. But if you try to use witchcraft to coax a good performance out of your team, and that team is in the northeast corner of Democratic Republic of Congo, there will be a riot with deaths. That's just the way of the world.

This time (not that I know of an others, really), witchcraft was practiced by the goalkeeper of Nyuki, who left the penalty area to use "fetishist" spells against his rivals. An on-pitch melee ensued between the teams. A local police commander came onto the field to try to break it up, but was pelted with rocks by the crowd. Other police then fired teargas into the crowd, which caused a rush for the exits. During the mad rush to get out, 11 people were killed, presumably trampled, though the article has no exact information on that.

See? There was no way to prevent this type of escalation once that rogue goalkeeper started doing his goal dance. Every step of the way the response of the people involved was the only logical one that could be taken. Once witchcraft entered the picture, 11 people had to die. I bet they had terraces in there, too.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, what things would lead to such a riot in England? Sure, there could be a pub brawl, but those usually only lead to one knifing death at a time, such as this one from last week, which took the life of a professional footballer. We're long since out of the days of Hillsborough, now that top-flight stadiums are all-seater and many fans have been priced out of the game anyway.

Could one of Chelsea's patented (and much-copied) circle the ref moves get out of hand? What if Mark Halsey had reacted negatively to being surrounded on Saturday and started handing out more bans? At what point would Chelsea fans have started ripping out seats?

It's fantasy, I know, it wouldn't happen. Chelsea fans don't care enough to riot, they just like it when the team brings home a trophy or two. Anything else just gets in the way of spending money.