…Nomads and stadium officials trade accusations after Simba clash nets just MK80 million…

A war of words has broken out between Mighty Wanderers Football Club and Bingu National Stadium security management, with both sides pointing fingers after Sunday’s CAF Champions League clash against Tanzania’s Simba Sporting Club generated a disappointing MK80 million — far below what the club had banked on.

The Nomads had opted to sell tickets only on match day, skipping pre-sales altogether in an effort to cut down on fake tickets and gate leakages. Even so, six people were arrested on the day for possessing counterfeit tickets, and there were reported attempts to rob vendors at official selling points.

Acting Chief Executive Officer Wallace Kachingwe did not hold back, accusing stadium security of running what he called a “cartel.” He argued the turnout should have translated into far higher earnings, especially since the club had halved ticket prices to draw more fans through the gates.

Kachingwe’s central grievance is that security failures on the day let large numbers of fans in without paying, and he pointed squarely at the police, private security firms, and stewards working the match — suggesting they may have been complicit rather than simply overwhelmed.

Kachingwe has since pressed BNS management to move quickly on fixing perimeter fencing and entry-point weaknesses, which he says remain grossly inadequate.

But Inspector Davis Kaukonde has fired back, laying much of the blame on the club’s own planning. He says BNS had flagged the likelihood of a massive crowd well in advance — precisely because ticket prices were so low — and had pushed Wanderers to open at least ten selling points instead of the five the club settled on, particularly given there were no pre-sales to spread out demand.

That recommendation, he says, was rejected. The result: long queues, tickets running out while fans were still waiting, and the chaos that followed.

Notably, the club insists it wasn’t short on manpower — it deployed 125 police officers, 16 private security personnel with sniffer dogs, 20 Top Guard officers, 20 Maximum Security officers, and 100 stewards for the fixture. Yet despite those numbers, Wanderers maintains that breakdowns in coordination and enforcement on the ground are what allowed revenue to slip through the cracks.