Football Kenya impasse ruining many lives
In 2019, Sony Sugar was expelled from the Kenya Premier League after failing to honour three consecutive matches due to financial incapacitation.
In August of the same year, almost all the clubs experienced financial uncertainty after the main league sponsor SportPesa pulled out after a tax dispute with the government.
Nigerian gambling giant BetKing would come in to fill the gap in 2020 with a staggering KES1.8 billion five-year-deal that would see top flight clubs receive at least KES 8 million each. The second tier Nation Wide League was also a beneficiary of this deal, so were other grassroot football programs. This was by far the largest sponsorship deal the KPL had ever signed.
However, the deal fell through after a single season of sponsorship for reasons the FKF has never bothered to explain. What looked like a flicker of light at the end of the long dark tunnel that Kenyan football has always wobbled died and left us all in a hole we appear to be accustomed to.
Fast forward to November 2021, the problems bedevilling the most widely played game in the country and the world multiplied when the government disbanded FKF.
With the ‘government interference’, escaping a FIFA ban would’ve have been a miracle. But the clubs continued playing, and fans continued braving the uncertainty by going to the stadiums.
There was hope that the impasse would not last as long as it has – now two years – and the eventual champions would have represented Kenya in the CAF Champions League. And the cup winners in the Confederations Cup.
Kenyans also looked forward to watching the Harambee Stars in the continental and world cup qualifiers. And the women’s team which had qualified for the African Women Cup of Nations.
Early this year, the Women’s under-17 team also got banned from world cup qualifying matches.
FIFA insists that it still recognizes suspended FKF office holders led by Nick Mwendwa, but the government supports the caretaker committee led by football greenhorn Justice Aaron Ringera.
This impasse has led to clubs boycotting a league run by any entity that is not recognized by FIFA, and for good reason. Participating would all be for nothing.
In reality, clubs’ coffers are running dry. Without matches, even the few clubs that attract considerable numbers of fans will barely sustain themselves. The few that rely on corporate sponsorships may lose them.
Our young ambitious players will not have the opportunity to showcase their abilities to scouts at the international stage for possible recruitment to more lucrative leagues.
Without salaries, players and their families suffer. The bodies that are supposed to improve the environment for football to flourish are instead making a death bed — more clubs may find themselves like Sony Sugar.
Even though the caretaker committee’s assignment officially ends on 15 October, we need concrete solutions to get our football back on the right track. Hopefully, the new administration at the Ministry of Sports led by Ababu Namwamba will get us there.
Otherwise, this vicious cycle is a catastrophe.
Hillary Namunyu is a writer and communications professional keen on advocacy communications in the cultural, climate, and tech spaces.