The new FKF Technical Director Andrew Spiers makes changes to under-17 side

New Technical Director Harambee Stars Andresa Spiers during his unveiling at a meeting in Nairobi on June Thursday, 2016. [PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD]

The new Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Technical Director, Andrew Spiers, has taken full charge of the national Under-17 side and made changes to the team’s technical bench.

The team is in camp preparing for a 2017 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations qualifier match against Cameroon next month.

Spiers has redeployed John Kamau back to the national Under-20 side even as he appointed Michael Nam to work with him in the under-17 side.

Football Kenya Federation President Nick Mwendwa confirmed the move yesterday while empasising that Spiers is fully in charge of all the age group teams.

“We went through a process to select a Technical Director recently and his primary objective is to oversee the development of the game from the grassroots upwards. That is why he has seen it fit to initiate changes in the technical bench.

“He is very clear that the players in the age group teams must get it right for us to improve football standards in the country and he will therefore focus on training local coaches on his philosophy,” explained Mwendwa.

“As Spiers oversees the U-17 team, he will also help build capacity of coaches who can then confidently handle junior teams in future,” added Mwendwa

To shape up for Cameroon, Kenya will first take part in the Under-17 Cosafa Cup to be held in Mauritius from July 22.

In a separate interview, Spiers says his main undertaking remains the training of coaches to help in the development of local football.

Spiers has been appointed on an initial two-year contract and his salary will be paid for by betting firm SportPesa, who last week signed a five-year deal to become the official betting partner of FKF.

Before taking up the Kenyan job, Spiers worked with the Romania Under-19 team. He said in an interview: “My biggest responsibility will be to train coaches because it’s a big issue. We need more coaches with higher CAF qualification.”

He further revealed that he will seek to identify an elite group of players to work with in developing successful national teams and in doing this, Spears said he will work with a task force comprised of local coaches.

“Together with this task force, we will identify one system of play to be adopted by all teams in Kenya. In doing this we will come up with short, medium and long term strategies. You cannot do all this in one day. It will require hard and consistent work,” added the German.