Were, Omondi axed from Harambee Stars

Harambee Stars’ Kevin Omondi  during their Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup group match against South Sudan at Namboole Stadium on Tuesday. [Photo: Stafford Ondego/Standard]

By Robin Toskin and Ernest Ndunda

The future of youngsters, Kevin Omondi and Paul Were, in the national football team Harambee Stars is in doubt after they were “caught pants down with women” in the team’s hotel in Kampala.

The incident occurred in the four-star Sports View Hotel in the wee hours of Wednesday after Stars had laboured to a 2-0 win over South Sudan in the Cecafa Tusker Cup at Nelson Mandela Stadium, Namboole.

“They will be in the next flight home,” furious Harambee Stars assistant coach and team manager told FeverPitch of the disgraced Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards midfielders.

Football Kenyan Federation chairman Sam Nyamweya warned they would take further action against the randy youngsters, including “suspending them from playing for their clubs”.

He added: “This and other malpractices are what have ruined Kenyan football. Rest assured we shall deal with them. The coach was right to eject them from the team,”

Assistant coach Ken Odhiambo told FeverPitch that, “everyone is gutted here. They have let down everyone. We have shameful and unprintable pictures of the two”.

“They breached the team rules and they will have to pay for it.

Feels hurt

“Everyone feels hurt here. We came here believing we had a common goal to win the trophy for Kenyans only for the two to stab us on the back,” the coach said.

Team Manager Gabriel Olang said the two would leave Kampala at 10am in a 55-minute flight to Nairobi.

“Imagine you are in Somalia fighting for your country and someone entrusted to watch your back is out there soothing his loins!”

Asked whether the youngsters were knocked off their cool by the Sh300,000 given to them by Sports Minister Ababu Namwamba, assistant coach Odhiambo said: “No. We had not given them the money. May be they indulged in advance of the token appreciation by the Sports minister.”

Decent display

Omondi, who was an integral part of Gor Mahia this season put up a decent display but the wayward Leopards winger, Were, was abject.

It is not the first time Were is finding himself in trouble with the national team coaches. In 2010, the speedy winger was ejected from the Cecafa Under-20 in Eritrea for disrespecting the coaches, but was pardoned after pleading with head coach Vince Ombiji.

“After the impassionate plea, I let him stay but partly also because there no available flights then. Yet even after we forgave him, he absconded from camp as we prepared to play Swaziland in the African Youth Championship,” Ombiji said.

Kenya needs to beat or draw with Ethiopia in a do-or-die encounter in Namboole Stadium, Kampala, tomorrow to guarantee a quarter-final slot in the on-going Cecafa Tusker Cup.