Ugandans’ raid on Kenyan Premier League vault

Uganda Cranes players celebrate after beating South Sudan in a Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup in 2012 in South Sudan. [PHOTO: FILE / STANDARD]

BY GISHINGA NJOROGE

KENYA: Kenyan footballers are not paid piles of cash. Indeed many of them and their sympathisers often claim that the players earn ‘peanuts’.

But the way these guys “blow” their money once they receive it is well known to those close to them and identified as a chronic problem.

Whether they are well or badly paid is relative to life generally here or abroad. But it appears that, even though their football skills may not match, the idea of local footballers is that they deserve to be paid as much as Yaya Toure.

Yaya, Africa’ best player, three years in a row, earns 200,000 Sterling Pounds (Sh28 million) a week. If in Nairobi and he wished to buy the most expensive Samsung smart phone, the S4, Yaya would find that, at a Sh53,000 price tag, it would have to be same gadget that many Kenyan Premier League (KPL) players aspire to and indeed buy.

How can Kenyan footballers claim to live in penury and yet exhibit a life style of reckless spending?

By the standards of millions of Kenyans, the KPL clubs pay very well. To say they don’t and that footballers live in misery is to have a similar view of the salaries of a vast Kenyan middle class who apparently manage to keep their chin up and get on with life.

A while ago, during the labour relations battles between Government and teachers, a sample pay-slip was published in the daily Press.

It showed that a school teacher, aged 56,  and therefore one who had worked for more than 20 years,  earned a basic monthly wage of Sh39,076, a house allowance of Sh12,000, a medical allowance of Sh2,680 and a commuter allowance of Sh2,680, adding up to a gross monthly salary of Sh56,000.

Average life

A typical Kenyan earning this amount, or far much less earlier in his/her career, is one who was perfectly able to live a more-than-average standard of life; taking children to school and university, building a house in Kiserian, Kitengela or Juja, supporting members of extended family and even investing in business.

With an average monthly salary of Sh20,000 to Sh30,000, many have gone on to realise the “Kenyan dream”; the attainment of an above average standard of living.

Footballers think they are special; that by playing for Mathare United, Thika United, Western Stima and Harambee Stars, for example, they are doing everyone, except themselves, a favour. And that when they earn some money, irrespective of whether they have siblings, hard up parents or relatives who would be saved by just a fraction of it, it is strictly for them to have a “good time”.

A lot of footballers earning far more than many ordinary wananchi do not consider it their responsibility to live within their means, save money and invest in a future like everybody else.

Some of them see that it is too little to buy anything sensible or to be invested. The end of it for many top club and international players is that after they burn their earnings in short or long careers it is everyone else’s responsibility to take care of their broke selves because they “entertained or played for them”. How misguided can they be!

Stories of footballers fallen on hard times will continue. But the notion that they place a tinge of guilt on many who love football is misplaced. A lot of the “sorry cases” are self-inflicted.

Many opportunities in Kenyan football are out there for the taking. For instance, for a strapping youngster fresh out of high school’s Form Four, a good salary of up to Sh50,000 a month, plus winning bonuses, of up to Sh10,000 a match in some clubs, is the norm.

What’s the monthly salary for a fresh varsity graduate? Or, indeed one who has been on the job for quite a while? Ask yourself.

This season you will find a lot more of senior players earning much higher than this. It is not easy for Kenyan clubs to raise this sort of money but they are trying.

ugandan footballers

In fact, even though, scraps between players and clubs over salaries do surface before they are defused, it is encouraging to see that, at the very least, none of 16 teams in every KPL season is usually dirt broke; which is the case in many leagues in Africa.

The good signs that the Tusker Premier League is a nice area of employment had long been noticeable to Ugandan footballers and for some well-established ones such as Cranes midfielder Musa Mudde that was as far back as four seasons ago when he asked for leave from the Uganda Army to come to join Sofapaka, leading the team to the KPL championship in 2009.

After stints in Tanzania and recently in Uganda, Mudde is back in Nairobi to join AFC Leopards.

The attitude of the Ugandan footballers appears all too different from that of their Kenyan counterparts; a deep faith in the KPL. And they are also coming to Kenya because they will be better paid than in Uganda, look forward to playing in a better organised league and in a country they will perhaps be much happier.

The champions, Gor Mahia, will be having four Ugandans; quality men, possibly straight into their starting XI, after the Cranes Godfrey Walusimbi and Geoffrey “Baba” Kizito joined up with Danni Sserunkuma and Israel Emuge who were key in K’Ogalo’s title campaign last season.

These are men who must have made a wise comparison of everything in the East African leagues and chose KPL for very good reasons.

On the international front, Kizito, Walusimbi and Kizito are players who have taken on Kenya’s Harambee Stars and come out on top. They are quality players. That at Gor Mahia they will be joining Bobby Williamson, the coach who led Uganda in domination over Kenya in the past five years is a spectacular turn of events for them and Gor Mahia.

There are first signs that at last Gor Mahia are seeking to break out of their narrow-mindedness of recruiting from their traditional home base. For a decent campaign in the [Africa] Champions League and indeed quest to become a great club in Africa, Gor really have no choice but to sign talent from all over the continent and not just from Kenyan villages.

The presence of a quartet of quality Ugandan players could cause a revolution in the Kenyan domestic league. If these guys do really well, Gor Mahia may feel “why could we not have brought in two or more, after all they are a good price?”

They are, indeed a good price because, moneywise and in many other aspects, the Ugandan league is hopeless.

The country is, in fact,  running two premier leagues  -- a 16-team FUFA [Federation of Uganda Football Association]  Super League and USL [Uganda Super League] comprising  eight teams mainly made up of 2nd XIs of rebel factions of the clubs in the FUFA league ; pathetic.

Best talent

Ugandan footballers are skilful and on average they surely have the best talent in East Africa. But in terms of administration Ugandans do not rise above the low standards of their counterparts in the region. The emigration of Ugandan players is indeed a jump from a sinking ship.

It is indeed a big surprise that Cranes internationals such as Steven Bengo and Hassan Wasswa will continue to languish in the FUFA League. The Kampala City Council FC hot shots orchestrated a 3-0 flattening of Kenya’s AFC Leopards after each scoring in a recent match at the Mapinduzi Cup in Zanzibar.

The Kampala Club went on to lift the Cup after 1-0 win against Dar es Salaam in the Final of a tournament that the Ugandans were head-and-shoulders above everyone else and in which Kenyan clubs Leopards and Tusker were outclassed.

Bengo and Wasswa were not even in the Uganda team at the ongoing CHAN [African nations Championships] in South Africa. Capturing the headlines there is Cranes striker Junior Yunus Ssentamu whom many predict will soon be out of the country with a good professional contract.

Ssentamu impressed by scoring a double in Uganda’s opening 2-1 Group “B” win over Burkina Faso in Cape Town last Sunday.

A continuation of troubles in Uganda are a reminder that things can get awry if nonsense interferes with the top league in the country and that the KPL should be allowed to maintain its remarkable professional independence.

It is anticipated that the Ugandan players, who are not exclusively in Gor Mahia, will be worth their weight in [Gold] the Kenya money being splashed out for them but they are unlikely to disappoint.

Rather, they may give rise to more and more imports from Uganda. Will this be allowed or will it be frowned upon?

For answers, ironically [read elsewhere in this feature], be directed to the Gor Mahia camp for comments; from none other than Gor chairman, Ambrose Rachier, who recently assumed the chairmanship of the Kenyan Premier League.