Why Musonye is walking a tight rope

Okoth Omulo

Nicholas Musonye, the indefatigable Secretary-General of the regional football ruling body, Cecafa, has an unenviable job.

He is running a conglomerate of football federations within the East and Central African region, of which his native Kenya is the most powerful economy.

His native Kenya has the most entrenched systems and the most sophisticated and modern communications sector. Hence, Musonye’s compatriots are also the most ambitious, competitive and liberal minds, who not only claim to know their rights, but take every chance to shout about it.

Incidentally, the infrastructure has not translated to the development of football. Isn’t it small wonder that Tanzania, whose economy doesn’t compare to Kenya’s, is the destination of choice of many a Kenyan footballer?

In Tanzania, footballers gain directly from their sweat. Gate collections are shared among players. Even Rwanda, who rose from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, has attracted a few Kenyan footballers in the past.

But because of the sophistication, exposure, ambition and sheer ability to make neighbours catch cold when they sneeze, Kenyans have spent more of their time fighting for control of the beautiful game.

Hounded Out Of Office

That fight has not spared anybody, including Musonye’s predecessors in Cecafa, James Tirop and Sammy Obingo. Tirop was hounded out of office by fellow Kenyans, in fact by a powerful combination of Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards chiefs. Obingo found himself on the wrong side of Fifa in the run-up to 1998 Fifa elections in Paris when he supported Swede Lennard Johanssen, who was opposing Sepp Blatter for the presidency.

The all-powerful and ‘almighty’ Fifa has a warm working relationship with Cecafa, whose secretary Musonye is from Kenya, a nation which is like a jigger in Fifa’s mighty toes. He confesses independence, but I know that forces in Kenya who are close to Fifa are monitoring Musonye’s every step, lest he takes a different path from the ‘progressive’ forces of global football. He is one of the people Fifa House consults on Kenya’s football politics.

On Red Alert

This has put Musonye’s instincts on red alert. He would wont to react rather too loudly to sometimes the most harmless slips by fellow Kenyans.

He goes gaga to situations which he would easily have just kept mum about.

Players are used to being pampered. That’s why the Sh10m-a-week Chelsea predator-in-chief, Didier Drogba, behaves like a boy at the slightest provocation. So our own players arrive late in Jinja and find the dining hall closed and miss their dinner.

When they complain, which they are bound to do anyway, Musonye tells them off rather too angrily and dares them to quit if they so wished.

Nigeria’s Super Eagles, too, complained about our own ‘bompy’ Kasarani Stadium in 1997.

Musonye wonders why only Kenyans always complain. Well, they are the most likely to complain because they see Musonye, like Tirop and Obingo before him, as one of their own. Therefore, in their thinking, Musonye is likely to give them a hearing.

Sudanese top goalkeeper, Akram Alhadi also said the uneven surface at the Bugembe Stadium in Jinja can cause injury to players who still have major World Cup qualifying rounds ahead.

I am not aware if Musonye did answer him. Zambia coach, Herve Renard, was more stinging in his criticism of the state of the Bugembe Stadium. He called it ‘pathetic’ and said "it is not normal to allow teams to play on such surfaces."

I don’t know if Musonye reacted to him, loudly or quietly.

If he did, I doubt if the rejoinder bordered on the harangue he subjected Kenyans to.

Burundi coach Gilbert Kanyenkore also complained about the pitch, which was not reacted to.

Conversely, Musonye can rightly feel frustrated by Kenya’s persistent nagging. Kenyans like complaining about virtually anything under the sun. He is likely to feel targeted.

But I think Cecafa has institutions that are insulating top offices like Musonye’s from external threats and there is no reason to feel insecure.

As a colleague, I would advise Musonye to take the heat on its stride. Others will ask him to get the hell out of the kitchen if he can’t take it.

—The writer is The Standard’s Sports Editor

iomulo@eastandard.net