The Rwandan Football Association have bitten the bullet and banned the use of witchcraft in football.
What exactly has prompted the Rwandans to clamp down on witchcraft, an item which is low on the list of FIFA's legislative priorities?
Well, there was the extraordinary events of a game in the Rwandan league earlier this month. Rayon Sports were trailing Mukura Victory 1-0.
Rayon were growing frustrated by their inability to score. Their centre forward Camara attributed this, not to poor finishing, but by witchcraft by the opposition goalkeeper before the match. Prior to the game, the Mukura goalkeeper had placed an item down at the foot of the post.
Just before half-time, Camara ran into the goalmouth, picked up the item and ran towards his own dugout much to the rage of the opposition goalkeeper and defenders.
Camara's ingenious witchcraft reversing strategy paid off only moments later. He nodded home the equaliser.
Witchcraft has been banned in football in Rwanda, after a player allegedly performed rituals in a league game. pic.twitter.com/AilucuUnlO
— Isima Odeh (@IsimaOdeh) December 28, 2016
The Rwandan authorities do not believe witchcraft has the capacity to alter the outcome of games. But they have stepped in to ban to prevent a repeat of these farcical scenes of violence.
In FERWAFA (Federation of Rwanda Football Association) statutes we don’t have any law punishing the use of witchcraft because there is nowhere in the world where it has been proven that it can influence the outcome of a game.
However, with the violence between players because of allegations that one team is using it, we have decided to enact laws.
The GAA never formally banned witchcraft, meaning that Biddy Early, a Clare herbalist who died some nine years before the association was founded, apparently continued to exert an inordinate influence on inter-county hurling in the twentieth century. And that's before we mention Mayo priests from the early 1950s.
