Why Kenyan football will not become better soon

AFC Leopards FC players in a celebratory mood in a past Kenya Premier League match (elgonsports.com)

This week was a very low moment in Kenyan football when the chairman of AFC Leopards, Allan Kasavuli, resigned from the leadership of the club, citing frustrations from club officials. This is indeed sad, coming at a time when international football is going through tough times, with the announced arrest of seven officials of the world governing body, FIFA. The outgoing AFC Leopards chairman announced that a caretaker committee would run the affairs of the club for the next couple of months. This announcement was immediately renounced by some club officials, saying that the outgoing official did not have such powers. Two of the new personalities who were named by the chairman to run the affairs of the club, Alex Ole Magelo and Amin Walji, are past officials of the club. These two are known to have political ambitions in Kajiado and Nairobi. Just over a week or two ago, AFC Leopards’ players were stranded in Mombasa and were held in a Mombasa hotel until two politicians, Raila Odinga and Ali Hassan Joho, came to their rescue. One other official of AFC, Secretary General George Aladwa, is also a politician. I have no problem with politicians but I think that having politicians leading football clubs and sports associations is the bane of our local clubs, particularly the community clubs like AFC and their rivals Gor Mahia. The politicians have no clue about managing football. Is it any wonder then that AFC and Gor, the oldest and the most celebrated clubs in the history of football in Kenya, do not have a shirt sponsor up to now and have been struggling financially for years now? If you look at the history of football in Kenya, we have had club officials running away and going into politics never to associate with football again. We had Kenneth Matiba, Clement Gachanja, Job Omino, Wycliffe Oparanya, Peter Kenneth, and the current Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Sammy Nyamweya, who has tried his hand in politics unsuccessfully. Besides Nyamweya, other officials at the national office who are known to have political ambitions are Robert Asembo and Tom Alila. These are just a few of football officials who are also politicians. Whereas some of these politicians have been so helpful to the club in the past, it is a fact that politicians are not the best of managers. Politicians always have their sights on political seats and everything they do is with the goal of winning political support. The problem that Kenyan football is facing today is not just a problem of the clubs; the whole football industry is in sick-bay. This sickness starts at the top where the head of FKF, Sammy Nyamweya, like his counterpart at FIFA Sepp Blatter, is facing accusations of corruption. A Germany media outlet has come out with a documentary that accuses Nyamweya of corruptly receiving money from FIFA and failing to account for it. These are just accusations but they cannot be wished away. Where there is smoke there is fire. Generally, politicians are always short-sighted and anything they do is just for the short-term. If past experience is anything to go by, it seems that politicians in football management are only using their offices to amass wealth as they wait to go into politics full-throttle. The trend of having politicians running football clubs is causing more harm than good and should not be allowed to continue. The sooner Kenyan football fans do away with electing politicians into office at both the national and club levels, the better it will be for football. The problems facing AFC Leopards are just symptomatic of the problems facing football in Kenya as a whole.

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