DR Congo postpone football league until further notice

TP Mazembe are the reigning champions in DR Congo and also won the Confederation Cup in 2016

The government in DR Congo has told the country's football association to suspend league competition from Thursday until further notice.

The move comes amidst fears that the end of President Joseph Kabila's mandate next week will spark violence.

"This general situation in the country risks spilling into the stadiums," Barthelemy Okito, secretary-general of the sports ministry, said.

One popular chant heard at games warns Kabila that his mandate is over.

Kabila is required by constitutional term limits to step down on 19 December but he has said he plans to stay on until at least April 2018, the earliest the government says an election originally planned for last month can be organised.

His opponents accuse him of deliberately delaying the vote to cling to power - a charge he denies - and have vowed street protests to force him from office.

More than 50 people died in demonstrations in September over election delays and there are fears protests this month could spark widespread violence.

Violence "could start at the stadium and spread to the city. It was like that in 1959," Okito said, referring to riots against Belgian colonial rule that broke out in January 1959 outside the capital's main football stadium and helped kindle the independence movement.

Source: BBC