By Biketi Kikech

North Rift region used to be one of the well-organised Kenya Football Federation (KFF) branches.

Football fans from Western Province would throng the Kipchoge Keino and Kitale municipal stadiums on Saturday and Sunday afternoons to watch KFF league matches.

The last time the region hosted a league match was during the 1990 season after which Eldoret KCC were disbanded because of cash crunch.

Leadership wrangles and mismanagement have, for the past three decades, killed the beautiful game in the area with no signs of revival. Most annoying is that young talent coming through the school system have no place to advance their career.

Kipchoge Keino Stadium used to host continental powerhouses like Power Dyanamos of Zambia and Costa Do Sol of Mozambique.

A man arranges gunny bags at the Kipchoge Keino Stadium in Eldoret. Photo: Peter Ochieng/Standard

Today, the ticketing box at the stadium is used for gunny bags storage by maize merchants who use the parking yard to dry the cereal bought from neighbouring Uganda.

Peter Kihamba, one of the most talented strikers who briefly starred for Harambee Stars and later coached Eldoret KCC points at mismanagement as the biggest problem.

"They only attend meetings and draw allowances and yet the region does not have a team either in the Nationwide or the Kenyan Premier League," said Kihamba.

Last year, the coach almost saw Eldoret Mahakama promoted to the Premiership. The team sponsored by the Judiciary, however, lost out to AFC Leopards in controversial circumstances and were immediately disbanded.

North Rift had no Football Kenya Limited (FKL) officials until three months ago when a group led by John Gitari was hand picked to fill the void.

The officials have no offices and can only be reached via telephone.

The KFF team led by Joseph Korir, an ally of the national chairman, Sam Nyamweya, has been in office for many years. They took over from Thomas Pilipili (chairman) and Joram Litiema (secretary), who used to run the KFF office at Kipchoge Stadium before 1990.

The region has produced some of the finest footballers for Harambee Stars. They include Alfayo Odongo, Patrick Shim, Tonny Lwanga, Peter Kihamba, Patrick "Paddy" Nachok, Sammy Shollei, Francis Barasa, Thomas Rero, Mark Sirengo and Sammy Simiyu.

The major clubs in the region were defunct Eldoret KCC, Rivatex and Kitale FC.

No league matches are played in the region, though with neighbouring Western Province they used to scout for talented players from schools.