This archive report was first published on 10 June 2020.
On June 9, 2018, Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza passed away following a heart failure. The 55-year-old leader was a sports enthusiast and a passionate football fan.
According to an official statement, Nkurunziza was taken ill the evening after helping out at a volleyball match in Ngozi, northern Burundi, on Saturday. However, it was his love for football that earned him a special place in the hearts of Burundians.
There is plenty of internet footage of Nkurunziza playing football across Burundi, where he usually organized matches with his football club, Halleluja FC. Despite being an ardent lover of football and scoring regularly for his own team, there was one interesting incident that he will always be remembered for by football fans.
In a match in 2018, Nkurunziza's team faced a team from the northern town of Kiremba made up of Congolese refugees. The opposition team, unaware that they were playing against the Burundi's president, attacked him every time he had the ball and made him fall several times.
Despite bringing down the president on several occasions, the Congolese refugees did not get carded. However, the Kiremba team's administrator, Cyriaque Nkezabahizi, and his assistant, Michel Mutama, were arrested for "conspiring against the president," according to an AFP news report.
