Government should create ministry to spearhead sport tourism

Laura Cretney poses with EPL trophy  during Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Queens Baton Relay tour evening party at the British High Commission’s residence on Sunday. [PHOTO: ELVIS OGINA/ STANDARD]

By SEAN CARDOVILLIS

KENYA: With the English Premier League trophy having visited Kenya, and FC Barcelona recently launching their ‘Penya’ or local fan club in Nairobi, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Africa is becoming the new frontier for Europe to market football.

The Premier League is big business: broadcast to over 600 million people in over 200 countries worldwide, and has the highest revenue of any league in the world (2.479 billion Euros as of 2009/10 is the latest figure I could find).

Asia and North America have been the destination of choice for clubs over the last decade or so. But that looks to be changing with the realisation that Africa is opening up economically at a phenomenal rate, and as the cash-rich middle class hungers for something different, means it’s not if but when the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea will be visiting East Africa.

Official fan club

We’ve already seen the likes of Tottenham Hotspur visit South Africa, and with Barcelona opening up their official fan club here in Nairobi, which coincided with the holidaying of club president Sandro Rossel, could mean something big could be brewing behind the scenes for the Spanish giants in Africa over the next few years.

However bringing the likes of Messi, Rooney and Ozil to Africa is not cheap, and it would take a concerted effort by both the private sector and the government to bring football fans’ fantasies to reality.

As I have mentioned several times in this column, sports tourism is big business! We just have to look at South Africa to see how seriously they are taking sports tourism, and it’s about time that the Jubilee government took the bull by the horns and created a separate sports ministry to deal with sports specifically, rather than hiding it with culture.

Positive https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/images

Our athletes, along with other sports personalities and teams, have brought incalculable positive https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/images and publicity to this country, and it’s about time that the government harnessed and expanded on this in regards to the economy.

The summoning of Football Kenya Federation chairman Sam Nyamweya by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Authority this week over allegations of corruption is most timely!

Football and corruption have been linked in the same sentence for decades, and President Uhuru expressing his displeasure late last year at the way the sport was being run, is a sure sign that Nyamweya had better start changing his ways if he’s to survive as FKF boss.

Sports administrators must be taken to task and be asked to produce their records. If they are not up to scratch, then they should shape up or be thrown out of office.

From Strength To Strength

It is up to us the public, who care about sports, to be more proactive when it comes to seeing the standards of our favourite sports rise, and this includes putting pressure on sports officials who are not delivering in their associations, particularly those who’ve been hanging onto the reigns for decades and have nothing to show for it.

Last weekend, two stalwarts of the game, Benjamin Ayimba and Charles Cardovillis, launched an online show, the first of it’s kind in the country, ‘254 Rugby Show’, which deals with all issues to do with the sport locally.

You can catch the podcast of last week’s show by following @254rugbyshow – and today Ayimba and Cardovillis will be speaking to Kenya Rugby Union chairman Mwangi Muthee to discuss the state of the game.

Rugby is in a very strong position at the moment, with the leagues expanded countrywide, the national fifteens team ‘160 minutes’ away from qualifying for their first ever World Cup, and the national sevens team having the luxury of having no injuries or players missing due to personal commitments ahead of the Las Vegas IRB sevens tournament next weekend.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, patron of the KRU, spoke to Muthee this week to keep in abreast of developments in the sport, and has asked for a victory in a leg of the current IRB circuit –– a tall order as the step up from being fifth overall in last year’s circuit to cracking the top three teams (New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa) is a mountainous step, but not something that is out of reach judging by what the team achieved in the previous season.

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Kenya has one of the best national sevens technical benches in the world led by Paul Treu, and it’s not if but when they’ll win a leg of the IRB sevens circuit.

Michael Schumacher

Like many motorsports fanatics, Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident on the 29th December shocked me, and since then I, like millions of ‘Schumy’ fans, have waiting daily for any signs of improvement to his head injury.

The fact that the family have asked for privacy and the lack of any updates from the hospital only fuels the rumours and speculation regarding the state of his health.

However I can only assume that his amazing fitness (he’s still one of the fittest athletes in the world) is what’s keeping him alive.

He was also one of the most mentally focused drivers in history, and no doubt that’s a huge factor in him not giving up! Get well Schumy!

— The writer is a sport journalist and runs a consulting firm.

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