Sports Kenya recently placed an advert in the local daily for tenders to construct seven county stadiums. Many sports fans might have not gotten wind of it.
The advert might be an official follow up on what the Jubilee government promised in their manifesto during the last campaigns towards the 2013 general election.
A good government is sometimes judged by how it executes and actualizes its election pledges.
The stadiums are to be in Kamariny (Elgeyo Marakwet County) Karatu (Kiambu County) Wote (Makueni County) Marsabit (Marsabit County); Ruringu (Nyeri County) Chuka (Tharaka Nithi County) and Kipchoge Keino in Uasin Gishu County.
There are 47 counties in Kenya and there must be a reason the seven were picked as the government hurries up to fulfill its election pledges.
But will football gain anything after the projects are accomplished? Is the government just putting up stadia where all interests will be catered for or where crowds can gather or they also intend to develop some specific games like soccer, athletics or rugby?
Maybe we should not be very enthusiastic about the erection of new stadia. Assume they are ready by election time in 2017 but will they be maintained? Ask me another one!
We should all be curious to see the kind of sports that Marsabit Stadium will attract after completion.
Stadia in Kenya are used for very many activities and we’re yet to see a stadium built by the government and used exclusively for popular sports like football or athletics.
That simply means, we do not think about sport-specific facilities.
Since politicians determine our policies, they always assume a stadium must also be used for political rallies, religious crusades, reggae music concerts, hunger walks and military parades.
Unfortunately, all these activities are not related to football or athletics. They actually damage the playing surface.
No wonder the surface at Nyayo Stadium is like a potato farm. Again because of these activities, the stadia cannot have artificial turf because that will lock out the ordinary Kenyans in whose interest the facility was built.
Our local clubs are led by officials who acquire their positions through a democracy driven process, so they end up thinking like politicians.
They do not ask themselves why the British Prime Minister or Queen of England does not hold public meetings at Old Trafford, Emirates Stadium or even the good old Wembley Stadium.
The answer is simple: the number of people stomping on the surface would destroy the playing surface. Secondly, they know how to separate public and private interests.
The lack of imaginative leaders and shortsightedness in our planning leads to our constant failure.
Since the newly proposed stadia will be put up using tax-payers money, our politicians will own them, shouting themselves hoarse how they have developed football in Lokichogio, Loitokitok, Lwakhakha, Lamu, Lorgorian and Laisamis during election time.
That aside, it’s time we asked ourselves very hard questions: Is it a good idea to use funds putting up more soccer stadia yet the existing ones built by the colonialists are in laughably dilapidated? It is whispered that the words rehabilitate, renovate or repair have no translation in all Kenyan vernacular.
Kiswahili uses ukarabati, a word that was coined few years ago. It still doesn’t mean we have internalized the action behind the word.
It took the Chinese to help renovate Kasarani Stadium which was opened in 1987 when the word ukarabati had not been coined maybe because Kiswahili scholar Ken Walibora was still in academic diapers.
It took over 25 years between 1987 and 2014 to repair the facility. In our local languages we are still stranded with our equivalent words for ‘build’ and ‘demolish ‘. None for ‘renovate’.
Indeed, why put up a fresh soccer stadium in Wundanyi yet the Webuye Stadium is deteriorating?
