Let’s face it, Kenyan football is stuck in a rut and is going nowhere in the next five years

For the past several days, Kenyans have been talking about football -- if what happens in Kenyan stadia can even pass as that -- after rowdy fans, who understand no other language apart from violence, destroyed property in Machakos town.

Tweets upon tweets have been posted, and acerbic comments have been bandied about, but there is still no solution.

It was not the first time Kenyans witnessed rowdy football fans cause chaos and damage property and the subsequent finger pointing and half-hearted promises until the next “crucial” match  — whatever that is  — and more property gets damaged.

Previous events could have acted as lessons and whoever they are that mismanage football in this country could have learnt from them. Unfortunately, this is a country where everything is treated like a hit song, a fad, a passing cloud — people do not learn from experiences, or the mistakes.

A few months back, anyone who is anything in government was talking tough about Kenyan football after the national team got knocked out of the continental championships.

All sorts of promises were made, and one would have thought that the state of Kenyan football was going to be discussed from the levels of clubs because they are the rivulets which feed the river that is Harambee Stars  — and which get distracted when rowdy fans cause mayhem.

So far, nothing much has come out of those promises and the Kenya Premier League and the Football Kenya Federation officials are happy that everything is fine and that our football is going places.

Football pawns

After all, their revenue streams are still open and they are free to continue shortchanging footballers who in essence are so dis-empowered that they do not even know their rights and lack the wherewithal to realise that they are just pawns being used by venal officials who do not have a world view of sports.

Last Sunday’s chaos in Machakos only acted to reinforce the well-known fact that Kenyan football is rotten to the core. It is stinking and there is no one who is associated with it in any form, or at any level who can claim to be clean. From the media to the official broadcaster and anyone and anything in between, all act with impunity because the two bodies, FKF and KPL, which could have set the standards or shown the way, have perfected the art of impunity, are inward thinking and can only take Kenyan football in one direction, down.

True, the law enforcement agencies cannot escape blame, but they cannot arrest the rot in the boardrooms of these two bodies whose officials have continuously lied to Kenyans in general and footballers in particular that Kenyan football is going places, when in essence they are the ones going those places.

As I wrote a few weeks back  — and then some FKF official shamelessly wrote me a long, poorly-worded letter accusing me of wanting to kill football after having killed cricket  — Kenyan football is not going anywhere, now, tomorrow, next week, next month or in the next five years.

Kenyan football is stuck in a rut, with players going round in vicious cycles of poverty and officials of these two bodies continuously making words with their mouths — yeah, because speaking needs much more than just opening and closing lips — engaging in underhand deals and rewarding their cronies who are their partners in the crime of killing football and players dreams.

Based on how the parental authority reacts, it is easy to conclude that it is a part of this conspiracy now that ours is that country where the most corrupt get seats at the higher table and those who try to bring order are castigated.

Every now and then, FIFA’s name is invoked — and Kenyans warned that any actions against the federation by the government will have many consequences on the future of the game.

So, where does that leave the government? For a start, it should disband KPL because it is just impoverishing, nay, enslaving footballers. These young men should then be given Uwezo Fund or those youth-oriented Government funds because KPL is just killing their dreams and killing them physically, slowly.