Kenyan Arsenal fan commits suicide

In Nairobi, Kenya captial city, on May 6 – A Kenyan Arsenal fan committed suicide on Wednesday following his team’s 4-1 aggregate drubbing by arch-rivals Manchester United in Tuesday night’s Champions League semi-final, police said Wednesday.

Apparently, Kenyans take English soccer very seriously. Twenty-nine-year-old, Suleiman Alphonso Omondi, living in the capital Nairobi‘s Embakasi neighbourhood, hanged himself in his Arsenal shirt later they lost to Manchester United.

“We were watching the match at Bamba 70 pub, and when Arsenal was defeated, Suleiman just walked out in protest and he was crying,” Calvin Otieno, one of his friends, told AFP”.

“We didn’t know he was going to hang himself until this morning when we received the reports and came here to find his body at the balcony,” Otieno said outside the deceased‘s home.

Arsenal slumped to a 3-1 defeat at home in the second leg of the Champions League semifinal, capping a disappointing season for the Gunners who were already out of the Premier League title race early in the season. Football-related domestic tragedies are frequent in the region, where English clubs enjoy passionate following and European games draw more attention than national and continental games.

Arsenal is one of the most popular clubs in Africa, English Premier League and Champions League are among the hottest football fixtures on the continent. They are more widely watched than Africa’s own domestic league and CAF Champions League.