Let’s keep eyes on the ball: FKF candidates need to address issues, not engage in side shows

 

With elections for the Football Kenya Federation coming in slightly over a month, gloves have been removed. Candidates are bare-knuckled, digging every skeleton in rivals’ closets.

Social media posts have gone on the overdrive, spewing out slander on people perceived as opponents. Never have stakes been so high in electioneering campaigns for football leadership.

The top office attracts considerable interest. Going by previous occupants of the office, one can understand why it is not a place for the faint of heart. It is not a place for the Wanjikus of this world.

It has attracted some of Kenya’s most polished career civil servants, veteran politicians and business elite with quintessential track record in public service. Opportunists also come on board in equal measure.

Kenneth Matiba, Dan Owino, Clement Gachanja, Job Omino and Peter Kenneth are just some of the former occupants of this highly-political, and politicised, office.

It is also an extremely lucrative office, if the ferocious do-or-die campaigns to retain or unseat its occupants are any measure of the interest it attracts.

However, in the rush to the the poll, that has lined up close to 10 candidates out to unseat Sam Nyamweya, focus is moving away from the issues that are critical for the development of the popular game. Are candidates issue-oriented?

Many side shows are emerging that are diverting the eyes from the ball. Instead, skullduggery, slander, blackmail, lies, bribery, accusations and counter-accusations have all been rolled into one item called propaganda. It is stinking. And it seems the candidate with the most venomous, propaganda machines, and more vitriolic information on their rivals, real and imagined, and the biggest financial war chest, will carry the day.

In this euphoria, serious matters that have emerged in the intervening period will be swept under the carpet. This business-as-usual attitude in the rush to procure votes by hook or crook is recipe for chaos. In many institutions, it has perpetuated administrations that were as rudderless as they were clueless on matters they were mandated to manage. Kenyans must spare football this malaise.

Football, worldwide, is a multi-million-dollar industry. An economic driver. Football is a socio-cultural phenomenon that cannot be left in the hands of people who only want to pamper their egos and aggrandise themselves.

The current office must be held to account for its successes and failures. They must be asked hard questions on why they would want to return. Nick Mwendwa, Gor Semelang’o, Sammy Sholei and others who are seeking to unseat the current office,  must be asked questions on what they want to do differently. What value do they want to add to the sport that has the potential to employ thousands of our youth?

They must be asked to publicly tell Kenyans what they want to do to improve the game, and show how they want to do it.

The incumbents enjoyed massive public goodwill after years of running the sport more along the corridors of justice than on the fields. They have enjoyed huge government support, up to the highest office on the land.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, for instance, ordered that Harambee Stars coach be paid by the Government. They must be made to justify the huge amounts of money at their disposal in the past four years. Did they deliver on their promises? Is Kenya football any better than when they took charge?

Are there programmes and structures in place for the development of the game? Do we have youth development programmes to cater for future generations? Do we have academies run by the federation, or just privately-run institutions? Have we made good use of the Fifa Goal Project and Football Assistance Programme funding?

How about women’s football? How are we fairing, as opposed to other countries? How many national teams (Senior, Under-21, Under-17 etc) do we have at the moment? The senior national team failed to qualify for 2014 World Cup and 2013/2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

Where did we go wrong? How does the present office, if re-elected, hope to correct the mistakes that made the team fail to qualify? How did Kenya perform in the youth and women’s football? These are questions that the current office ought to answer, at a public forum, and also be asked why they would need another mandate.

On the regional level, Harambee Stars won 2013 Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup in Nairobi. Why did participating countries complain so bitterly about its organisation? When the current office took over, Kenya was 140th on the Fifa ranking, which was contemptuously being equated to the cost of a packet of maize floor. Kenya is now standing at 116. Is that a measure of improvement in our standing in the global arena?

From our region, Kenya are the fifth behind Uganda (71), Rwanda (78), Sudan (89) and Ethiopia (103). Burundi, Tanzania, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti are 134, 140, 201, 202 and 205 respectively.

Why did sponsorship from the corporate world shrink? It was curious, for instance, that Safaricom, the most profitable company in the region, pulled out of Sakata. On Thursday, they launched My Professional Dream Academies, and there was no representation from FKF and its top leadership. Tell Kenyans.