From Friday last week, Kenyans who still love whatever is left of Kenyan football were living in hope. They were hoping that the national team, Harambee Stars would upset a highly ranked Cape Verde in the pre-World Cup Qualifiers second-leg tie.
The Stars, whose losing streak is legendary, had shown some character of winners on November 13 with a 1-0 victory in Nairobi. That result gave Kenyans something to smile about.
While they had faith, deep down inside, they knew they were hoping against hope because the preparations were lacklustre and officials tasked with managing the national team, were showing a lot of disinterest as is always the case.
By Saturday, it was slowly dawning upon Kenyans that despite the promise the Stars showed, things would not work in their favour, thanks to pussy-footing and buck-passing between the entities, which were supposed to make travel arrangements, and generally take care of the players.
How things went down from Sunday to the day of the match in Cape Verde, is a story almost all Kenyans have heard, and the villain of the piece is the rambunctious president of Football Kenya Federation, Sam Nyamweya, who is unflatteringly known as the president 'For Killing Football'.
The tale of the Stars is sad, and embarrassing, shameful, and even silly, if it were not annoying. It is not easy to understand how the players were supposed to win, after a 20-plus-hour flight from which they disembarked just minutes to the game.
Nyamweya has always been the easy target when things go wrong with the Stars, or generally Kenyan football, and rightfully so since he never admits wrongdoing even when the whole world can see that standards are plummeting.
Nyamweya and his retinue of officials are ever on the defensive, and in denial — and in a state of war, armed with vitriol, invective and insults against real and imagined enemies even when it is pointed out to them that their bungling and fumbling and keeping everyone in the dark is not good for the game.
The truth is alien to them, and the only point of view that makes sense is the one they hold. Even when dynamics in the sports world are changing, they will stick to their archaic views, and brand everyone else an enemy.
But, Nyamweya and FKF officials cannot be solely held accountable for the morass in Kenyan football.
His battalion of defenders in almost every sector of society from football clubs, Kenyan Premier League Limited, media houses to the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive have to take blame too.
Of course there is nothing criminal with having friends in high places — but the only problem is that his troops refuse to see the things as they are.
After the Stars were bundled out of the 2018 World Cup by Cape Verde on Tuesday night, right-thinking Kenyans are baying for Nyamweya's blood and they say that his case is not about innocent till proven guilty, but the other way round, and finding him innocent would be an insult to Kenya's footballers.
Kenyans have a right to be mad at Nyamweya for he is the face of incompetence, but removing him alone will not solve the deep-rooted rot in Kenyan football.
When Nyamweya goes, his baggage and garbage in all sectors of the economy and governance, including newsrooms, will either have to go or change their collective stinking attitude if Kenyans want to get any meaningful results at home and abroad.