More woes for Harambee Stars

Harambee Stars jetted back home yesterday morning amid reports that Team Manager Willis Waliaula was detained in an Ethiopian hotel over unpaid bills.  Reports later emerged that he had resigned.

The team quietly jetted into the country at 5am after being eliminated at the quarter-finals stage of the ongoing Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (Cecafa) Senior Challenge Cup by Rwanda 5-3 on post-match penalties on Tuesday.

However, it was Waliaula’s detention that made news on social media the whole morning as well as his resignation.

A number of reports say the Stars team manager had to remain behind as the side had not cleared all its bills for extra members of the contingent.

Normally, organisers pay for a squad of 25 people, but Kenya carried six more people and according to tournament rules, they were supposed to cater for the extras.

In 2012 another Football Kenya Federation (FKF) official was detained in a Uganda hotel for similar reasons.

Again the Kenyan delegation had carried extra people beyond the 25-man official delegation.

But the big question in regard to the current scenario is why FKF Chief Executive Michael Esakwa who was in Ethiopia for Tuesday’s quarter-final match did not clear the bills before flying back to Nairobi.

Contacted, Esakwa said: “We had not anticipated that the team will be bundled out at the quarter-final stage and so had not planned to clear the bills when were asked to do so.”

He added: “I went to Addis Ababa on Monday and the main purpose was to pay the players and technical bench members their allowances for one week which I did and returned to Nairobi.

While there I instructed the team manager to prepare and send to Nairobi a summary of what we owe and we are organising to clear the same.”

Earlier on, the federation released a statement admitting they had incurred extra costs of carrying more players at the request of the coach.

The statement indicated that FKF had provided contingency funds amounting to Sh250,000 to cater for this and other costs.

“Nonetheless, FKF has paid the outstanding amount of Sh190,000. The issue of unauthorised expenditure will be dealt with when officials file report on the tour,” concluded the statement.

Reacting to reports that the team manager had opted to resign FKF chairman Sam Nyamweya said the official must first account for the money he had been given to pay for the extras.

“We gave him Sh250, 000 in two batches. He received Sh100, 000 just before he left and another Sh150,000 was taken to him by FKF Vice chairman Robert Asembo.

“In our estimation this was enough money to cater for the extras and so before he even thinks of resigning let him account for the money first,” he said.