Opinion: Is CHAN’s decision to deny Kenya hosting rights justified?

Football Kenya Federation President Nick Mwendwa Photo:Courtesy

The decision hardly came as a surprise. Clearly, the infrastructure is missing and renovation work is moving at a snail’s speed.

The Government, we should recall, gave the promise of constructing five national stadiums, but to date none has been built.

For years, the Kenyan government has distinguished itself for being long on lip service and very short on real action.

All concerned were aware of the bidding Kenya put in and the requirements, yet doing things the Kenyan way of procrastinating until the very last moment, it was only last week the government announced it had set a side Sh4.2 billion towards renovation work in stadiums.

While the national government should ideally have ensured the construction of new stadiums and upgrading of existing ones was its priority, it allowed itself to be distracted by some county governments that have not shown any aptitude for competency even in small issues to insist they would construct the stadiums at their own cost knowing fully well they lacked not just the resources, but the expertise as well.

FKF has been its usual bungling self, and not much help was forthcoming from that side. In the end, what is clearly corruption triumphed in the end as it has always done in the past. Kenya still has a very long way to go.