After Treu’s exit, Kenya rugby heads for decline

National rugby sevens players Muga Leonard, Bush Mwale and assistant coach Felix ‘Toti’ Ochieng’ when the team returned from the HSBC Rugby Series leg in Gold Coast in Australia last year. [PHOTO: DAVID GICHURU]

Following Paul Treu’s shock resignation on Thursday, be prepared for the permanent demise of Kenya rugby as we know it.

Money and the rapid expansion of the sport has meant that the rot being witnessed in the Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) has finally come to the surface after simmering for the last few years. From directors taking advantage of their positions to enrich themselves to power struggles between two factions of the senior management, the resignation of Treu has shown how deep rooted the problems are at the Ngong Road headquarters.

The South African told this writer in Dubai at the IRB tournament last weekend that the politics in the Union was affecting his programme. I could tell by the body language and the technical bench that something was seriously wrong, and the performances by his inexperienced squad reflected the problems behind the scenes.

Treu’s time as Kenya coach has been beset by one problem after another. The fact that he moved from one of the most developed sporting nations in the world to one that’s struggling for recognition amongst corrupt politicians did not bode well. However, the infamous players’ strike that decimated his team was possibly the final straw.

To watch the Kenya squad play as a pale shadow of themselves from the touchline at the Dubai 7s was one of the most painful experiences in my 18-year sports journalism career; and hearing rugby experts constantly question what was wrong with the team was heartbreaking.

Where Kenya goes from here is anybody’s guess. Getting a coach of Treu’s quality won’t be easy, but the difficult part will be letting the next technical bench get on with their jobs without interference from the Union -- and as we have seen with previous foreign and local regimes that will almost certainly not happen.

The perfect present for Treu would be for Kenya to confound the critics and have an awe-inspiring performance in Port Elizabeth. However, with the hosts (who won in Dubai), Wales and Mike Friday’s USA in the same group, it will be another baptism of fire for Andrew Amonde’s boys.

After attending the Dubai 7s last weekend, I spent a large part of this week wondering where we went wrong when it comes to the management of sports in this country.

Fair enough, we cannot compare Dubai with Kenya, but this country has the resources to go much further than where we are if it was run properly.

When I look at what has been happening in football, athletics and rugby, it makes my heart bleed to see how greed is tearing these sports apart.

‘The Sevens’ stadium, which hosted last weekend’s tournament, is actually very simple in concept. The only permanent structures (apart from the fabulous pitches) are the 5,000 sitting capacity stand and the double storey clubhouse.

The other stands on Pitch 1 are temporary ones, which increase the capacity to 50,000, and the seating areas are covered by carpeting that creates a unique sense of comfort whilst watching the action on the pitch.

One of the five outside pitches featured artificial mounds where fans could sit without straining to see their teams. Simple yet effective; so why can’t these ideas be brought to Kenya?

Like mainstream politics, sports associations are bedeviled by officials who have a short-term view of the direction their disciplines should be heading.

The conditions many sportsmen and women train in locally are appalling, and it is the majority of officials running the associations that think of what they can do for themselves first before tending to their subjects.

Meanwhile, the continued fight between Football Kenya Federation (FKF) and the Kenya Premier League (KPL) is affecting all stakeholders and dragging the country back to the dark days of the last decade.

Chairman Sam Nyamweya was right in the thick of the last huge fall-out that saw Kenya football split in two, and unless something out of the ordinary happens, he’s about to oversee another dramatic collapse in the local game.

Stakeholders, including sponsors and fans, are losing their patience with the latest shenanigans that include an abandoned KPL match (Sony Sugar/AFC Leopards) to the spat over an expanded league -- and the longer this continues the greater the threat of the government forcibly taking over sport and risking a ban by the world governing body Fifa.

I actually think it is time the government kicked the current administration out, soak up the Fifa ban and let football start afresh. Nyamweya and company have been in power too long and need to give way to fresh blood.

It is time for them to stop hiding under the Fifa umbrella and look at the greater good of the sport. Stakeholders are fed up of constant politics dogging football, and if this is not resolved soon than be prepared for a permanent exodus of sponsors from the game here, which would be a huge shame as we’ve been witnessing the quality of the sport grow in leaps and bounds in our neighbouring countries.

In other news, Posta Rangers have been very busy in the transfer market and signed coach John Kamau from Thika United, who ha gone ahead and purchased Kenyan international Charles Odette from Sony Sugar; Geoffrey Kataka from KRA; AFC Leopards goalkeeper Patrick Matasi (who finished the season as their number one), Top Fry keeper Shaban Odhoji, KCB left back John Odhiambo and Nairobi Stima’s Nicholas Ayaga.

The team is still hoping to sign Ingwe’s Bernard Mangoli -- and in a new frontier for the KPL they’ll be playing their home games in Eldoret.