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| Fans and sponsors will feel their safety is taken into account |
By Sean Cardovillis
The new Kenyan Premier League (KPL) season finally gets underway today, in what promises to be the most open and exciting league in years.
With excellent High Definition live coverage from SuperSport, sponsors having been flocking into Kenya’s number one sport, and this has resulted in Premier league clubs in particular investing heavily in players and technical support.
Two new clubs join the league this season: Nakuru All Stars, whom were two-time champions in the 1960s and have a major sponsor in Menengai Oil through their ‘Top Fry’ brand; and Kenya Revenue Authority.
New venue
There is also a new venue, Machakos Stadium, which will be the base for Mathare and Sofapaka, and the KPL and has given the stadium a clean bill of health.
Let’s hope the drainage has improved after the debacle of the recent GOtv Cecafa tournament where the pitch became unplayable every time it rained.
The KPL governing council met in Nakuru last week, and put in place stringent measures against hooliganism.
A special unit has been created to deal with this issue that’s been blighting football of late, and two major resolutions have been passed:
Clubs found guilty of hooliganism will have points dropped. It is vital that the Football Federation of Kenya respects any rulings made by KPL, as last season saw politics overrule any decisions made against clubs which were directly or indirectly involved in hooliganism.
Teargas will not be allowed inside stadiums.
This ruling was made after several incidents over the last couple of years where police were judged to be quick to use teargas when other methods could have been implemented.
The KPL must beef up security at matches, so fans and sponsors can feel reassured and return to the stadium knowing they are safe.
MYSTERY TO ME
It remains a mystery to me why football administration is still in the dark ages and the average Kenyan finds it a challenge to attend local matches.
If rugby and other sports can get it right in regards to security, then surely football can too! Fans of clubs like AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia need to also style up if they want to see their clubs grow and prosper in the long term, instead of creating trouble week in, week out, and threatening the long term financial stability of their clubs and the sport as a whole.
I’ll be informing you what’s going on behind the scenes of the KPL in this column and on my radio show with SuperSport commentator Herbert Mwachiro.
In the meantime, this weekend marks a milestone for Gor fans, as the team flew out for an African Champions League for the first time in eighteen years! The league champions carry a narrow 1-0 lead to Libreville, Gabon against US Bitam, whilst AFC have a more solid 2-0 margin against Defence of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
Motorsports Clash?
Tuesday evening saw competitors in the Kenya National Rally Championship (KNRC) gather at the Simba Union to dissect what has been going wrong in rallying of late.
Carl ‘Flash’ Tundo, the man at the centre of the controversy at the KCB Malindi Rally, called the meeting as chairman of the Kenya Rally Drivers Association.
Tension has been high between competitors, certain officials of the Kenya Motorsports Federation (KMSF), and organisers of rallies for a while, and the diabolical events in Malindi, that left the main sponsor KCB fuming after raising their sponsorship for the KNRC this season, must be resolved as soon as possible for the long term stability of the sport.
Tundo’s gathering of competitors is a step in the right direction, and the KMSF must recognise that without the drivers and their teams, there would be no rallying, and as I’ve mentioned in this column before, the officials running the sport must focus on the long-term growth of motorsports, cut out the petty politics and move on!
It is so sad witnessing rallying on the verge of a catastrophic falling out, with so much investment coming in from competitors and sponsors.
I personally think it’s time for the likes of Surinder Thatthi, who’s an FIA official, to get back into the KMSF full-time to return sanity to motorsport.
Tournament Cancelled
The basketball fraternity is feeling aggrieved after a major tournament that was scheduled to take place this weekend was abruptly cancelled. The BJ Sport Basketball Tournament East Africa at the Nyayo National Stadium was supposed to combine basketball and football, but when the organisers couldn’t secure enough teams to compete in the football section, the sponsors pulled out and organisers cancelled the much-anticipated event.
Basketball stakeholders are not amused, as they claim they spent time and money preparing for the tournament.
— The writer is a sport journalist and runs a consulting firm.
–– sean@seancardovillis.co.ke
