Harambee Stars (in white) in past action against Guinea: They bowed out of contention for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations finals. (Pic. courtesy of fifa.com)
Now that Harambee Stars have been knocked out of contention for the 2012 African Cup of Nations, it is time to go back to the drawing board.
Harambee Stars managed to secure a 0-0 draw against Uganda Cranes in Mandela Stadium in Namboole in Kampala on 8th October. They needed to win this match. But that alone was not enough to secure them a slot in next year’s Africa soccer bonanza to be staged in Gabon and Equitorial Guinea in January.
Harambee Star’s fate was predicated upon them beating Uganda and amassing a total of 10 points while Guinea Bissau was to beat Angola in the other deciding match that was played on the same day. If that happened, then Harambee would have had 10 points same as Uganda while Angola would have had 9 points.
But then that was not to be. Angola won their last match against Guinea Bissau and went ahead of group J to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012.
This leaves Kenya in a quandary. Their 0-0 draw against Uganda could not work any magic for them to propel them to the 2012 Africa finals. The same fate has befallen African football giants Cameroon, Nigeria and Egypt who have all failed to qualify for the 2012 finals.
But this is too sad for Kenya considering that they failed to qualify for the 2010 finals in Angola. This is coming soon after it was announced that the elections for football management in Kenya is scheduled to be held on the 29th of October. This came as a relief to the many soccer lovers who have been discouraged by the state of affairs in the local football scene.
Who has ever seen a situation where we have two bodies running football in any one country? Did Kenyans really expect much from that state of disorder? I sincerely did not expect Kenya to beat Uganda at home, what with Uganda’s current good form.
Perhaps the failure of Harambee Stars to qualify for the African Cup of Nations next year gives us as a nation an opportunity to reflect and think seriously about the direction we want local football to go. Kenya qualifying to participate in this bi-annual tournament would have closed our eyes to the fact that we are in big trouble as far as leadership of soccer in the country is concerned.
Looking at a few of the teams that have qualified for the tournament like Senegal, Botswana and Guinea, one realizes that Kenya too had a chance. In terms of their economies and the available infrastructure in their countries, Kenya is much better than some of these countries. How come they qualified and we did not? What is it that they did that we did not do? These are the questions that aspirants for the forthcoming soccer elections should be asking themselves and trying to find the answers for.
But without a doubt, our undoing has been poor management of soccer in the country. We have not had men and women who have the interest of the sport at heart. We have had men and women in office who were only after their selfish interest. As I have argued previously in some of my articles, I think that many of the people who have come into soccer management have come in with an agenda of using the influence they would gain in football to further their political ambitions. I can mention many who have used soccer in this country to get themselves into elective politics. But I will spare you that for now.
I think we have the best opportunity now to get into office men and women of substance, people of integrity who have the right ideas about running of football in the country. Now that our constitution has specified the qualities of leaders that we need in our politics, I believe that the same qualities should be demanded of those who want to become the lords of soccer in this country.
Our failure to qualify for the Cup of Nations is good since none of the candidates is going to use that fact to get an advantage over other candidates. At the same time, the other candidates should not use that as a tool to drive their point home about the need for change of leadership in running of soccer in the country. We are all in this together, the current officials and the aspiring leaders.
The big lesson that we ought to learn as a nation from this debacle is that we cannot gamble with our football the way we tried to do in the Ugandan match. Harambee had a very slim chance of making it to the Cup of Nations because they were not in control of the group. Our hope rested with how the other teams in the group were going to play. That was a tall order indeed.
We waited until the very last minute before people came forward to promise the Harambee Stars players incentives if they won. I wish these promises had come earlier. Maybe the players would have been more motivated to play better earlier on and won. We would not have found ourselves in the precarious situation we found ourselves in by hinging our on hopes on the performance of other teams, teams that knew that they too had to win to reach the Cup of Nations finals.
So, instead of cursing and crying over spilt milk, this is the time for Kenyans, especially the 5000 or so who will participate in the forthcoming elections, to pick people who are ready to restore the glory of the Harambee Stars to what it was in the early 80s.
This time, we should not have a situation where a candidate bribes voters, as has happened in the past, to win the elections, however unqualified they are. The Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) and the Interim Elections Board (IEB) should deal with such cases decisively for the sake of Kenyans getting the right people to manage football in this country.
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