The national football team, Harambee Stars, won’t parade among Africa’s best in Angola in January. They had long lost the battle to join the world’s best in South Africa next June. What is the way forward? This is the question we ask today after our ignominious exit last weekend when Nigeria beat Stars 3-2 at Kasarani.

That ordinary Kenyans love their game is not in doubt. That Kenyan youth yearn to attain the best standards in their beautiful game is not in doubt. That they have talent has never been in doubt since the by-gone era of Joe Kadenge, Bobby Oronge and Kadir Farah.

Equally palpable is lack of organisational structures and commitment to run the game competently. Government support has often depended on the minister (for sport) of the day. Yet, football is the easiest sport to run, as it only needs an open space, a ball and two goals on either side of the pitch.

While receiving the Fifa World Cup Trophy at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport last Thursday, President Kibaki made a statement that did not seem to make much sense from the face value, but was heavy with innuendo.

"Winning the World Cup trophy is every footballer’s dream and its arrival in Kenya is an opportunity to reconnect with one’s soccer ambitions and to appreciate that dreams can come true. For this reason, I urge our young upcoming football stars, and our Harambee Stars, to dream big so that Kenya can take its rightful place as a great football nation. We have an abundance of talent and we must put in place proper management structures that will take football to the next level in our country."

To the head of state, there are no proper management structures.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, under whose portfolio (National Coalition) sport falls, avoided a direct reference to governance issues, and deviated to the national team. Said the PM: "Rome was not built on one day. If Harambee Stars fail to qualify this time, they will in future."

President Kibaki’s words in his inaugural address to the ninth Parliament in 2003 ring loud in our ears:

"Mr Speaker, my Government also plans to take sport more seriously…Success in sport changes the lives of many Kenyans every year. It gives us something to be proud of as a nation. My Government plans to deal with corruption and mismanagement in this sector. These trends negatively affect our athletes. They have undermined the standards of key sports like soccer…"

Many people derive their livelihood from football, whether as players, coaches, referees, construction companies, stadium staff, television and other media.

Yet, the Kenyan scene is replete with persistent squabbles, political interference and corruption. Kenyans have had enough seminars. They have seen many bodies formed. We need to take our number one sport a notch higher.

People will demand the removal of Football Kenya Limited. But we must address the more critical questions like setting up structures and systems that will make our managers more accountable to players, Government and all stakeholders.

Independent bodies dealing in refereeing, coaching, youth development, women’s affairs, lower tier league competitions, schools and age-group competitions, legal matters, finance, media and all these issues must be addressed now instead of changing guard for its own sake.

The Transitional Stakeholders Committee of April 2004, set up by the Government made certain recommendations that ought to be dusted and implemented. Some sections were implemented, but more emphasis seemed to have been placed on the Kenyan Premier League and the national team, Harambee Stars.

Kenya Football Federation (KFF) had failed to produce a national youth development plan and had misused or misappropriated youth levy which were deducted from the gate receipts of all matches and the annual grant by Fifa for youth development.

There were no provincial or national competitions for teams for primary and secondary schools and there wasn’t a national system for identifying and providing special training for talented young players.

A lot of ground has been covered. Coca Cola started a Copa Cola tournament last year for the primary and secondary schools. But we need to implement a proposal that was made by KFF under the late Job Omino which sought to make it mandatory for all Premier League clubs to have youth sides or be disqualified.

We need to focus on youth development programmes for players 16 years and younger, improve school facilities, training and competitions at all geographic and age levels, identify and select the best youth players in each province and organise special provincial and national training camps during school holidays for talented players in different age groups.

Strong football nations in Africa like Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon established strong youth programmes first. They have regularly been taking part in Fifa World Cup for Under-20 and Under-17 and results are all there for us to see.

There are no competitions at any level for girls and women, except in privately clubs.

There should be provincial and national competitions for girls’ from primary and secondary schools andstart professional women’s football leagues in all provinces.

There was a lot of squabbling on the national team training, which definitely affected concentration of the players and caused bad blood between the German coach, Antoine Hey and top players and clubs. Yet there are clear guidelines that should be followed and are largely respected by many nations whenever the national teams are called to camp.

We need a lot of consultation between the national coaches, clubs coaches and technical team officials. And as we have painfully realised this year, we don’t need foreign coaches. Even Fifa discourages. We submit that they should only be hired to set up structures and leave the rest to local coaches.

We urge the Government to engage Fifa in charting the way forward. But majority of Kenyans feel we should ignore Fifa and move forward on our own. After all, Fifa occasionally adds confusion as when they set up a Normalisation Process and Committee after the Stakeholders effort, but which was taken hostage, hijacked and dominated by the old guard.

Fifa has this habit of playing a game of musical chairs, which must end. We are where we are because of Fifa’s interference. We know culpable individuals whose contribution to football is anything but retrogressive.

The Government has the machinery to investigate and ban all present and former officials who engaged in illegal or other activities which undermined the reputation of our sport and country like illegal players transfers and dipping their fingers in the football kitty.

Lastly, we humbly submit that we must start transition to a unified national federation right away.

We must end this farcical idea of having two federations, one recognised by the Government and other by Fifa. It only drains our effort.