TRUE ‘DARK FORCES’ OF KENYAN FOOTBALL: Harambee Stars poor show should be blamed on the so-called big clubs

Harambee stars vs Guinea Bissau - AFCON Harambee Stars technical from left Frank Ouna Stanley Okumbi and Musa Otieno during their AFCON Guinea Bissau match at Nyayo Stadium on March 27, 2016. [PHOTO:DENNIS OKEYO/STANDARD]

It is always predictable. Harambee Stars puts in a limp show against continental opposition and as sure as the sun rises from the East, here in Kenya they are tossed out of respective competitions.

The aftermath is always long drawn finger pointing and a call to a return to the drawing board. Case in point is the comprehensive beating at the hands of Guinea Bissau in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.

This time, however, there is no call to revisit the drawing board, rather under fire Harambee Stars Stanley Okumbi points his finger at ‘Dark Forces‘.

Turns out, the Dark Forces according to the former Kariobangi Sharks and Mathare United coach are his peers, loosely called Elite Group of coaches. It comprises senior tacticians as well as coaches in the top tier division, the Kenyan Premier League.

It is understandable for a ‘drowning man would clutch at straws’ if only to stay alive. If there were Dark Forces, Okumbi and the rest of the country should look no farther than local clubs and sprouting academies.

For as long as the blame goes to Football Kenya Federation (FKF), the clubs will always sit pretty. Yet the onus is on the clubs to scout, nurture and sell the players abroad for a profit.

The returns from selling players to endowed clubs abroad, apart from financial gain to selling team range from improved technical ability, tactical acumen, physical and mental development of the players in question. These attributes are what Harambee Stars need to deliver at top level. For ages it has been lacking.

For the last ten years, or even 15, AFC Leopards, Gor Mahia, Tusker, Bandari and Ulinzi Stars have not produced a player worth warming the bench even at third division club in Europe.

Kenya suffers from inertia stemming from the successful Youth Olympic centres of the 1970s and early 1980s, which remain glorified to date even when the world has moved on from Government driven initiatives.

It is this inertia that has held captive current FKF and its predecessors, local pundits and clubs that it is the role of the FA to set up youth structures. By that, in most cases, they mean FKF must have Under 17, 20 and 23 teams.

The Structural Adjustment programmes preached by the World Bank and IMF from 1989 put paid to such models.

Today, the key drivers of player scouting and nurturing are in the hands of private businesses highlighted by emergent sports management companies, private football academies and club academies.

This is where Kenyan clubs have let the country down. Although many a pundit point to the German model of player scouting as done by the DFB, what they don‘t say is FA there sends out a syllabus to all club academies, detailing its vision of players expected from the conveyor belt.

Nairobi City Stars have tasted the fruits of player scouting, recruitment and proper documentation via Southampton‘s Victor Wanyama. AFC Leopards were content with giving Wanyama Sh200 as training and travelling allowances fearing that a properly drawn contract would burden them in a way.

Nairobi City Stars picked up the player, JMJ Academy signed him officially and took him to Germinal Beerschot (Belgium). Just by properly documenting Wanyama City Stars benefited from the 5%-10% accruing from Training Compensation and Solidarity Mechanism as provided for by Fifa. And it’s good money from Sh130m transfer fees when Wanyama moved from Beerschot to Celtic and from the Scotland giants to Southampton for Sh1.7 billion.

But why are Kenyan clubs not doing this? The answer is simple. Their dreams start and end with the meagre gate collections. After all, FKF shall take the flak.

Not so in, say Ivory Coast (Asec Abidjan Academy), Nigeria (Pepsi Academy), Ghana, South Africa, Senegal (Diambars Academy), Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea etc. where they have produced world class players. Kenya‘s production line literally closed shop in early 1990s and the situation was not helped by new club leaders unwilling to institutionalise these outfits.

Kenya Breweries Limited, which own Tusker FC, have nothing to write home about. The Ruaraka Stadium is a potato field. The dressing room is an upgrade of poor man‘s shack at Mukuru kwa Njenga. Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards are like sons of man without a place to rest his head. When Lake Warriors and Mwenge went burst in Coast Province, that was the end of football and Bandari, a property of Kenya Ports Authority exists by name.

It is thus preposterous for president Nick Mwendwa to proclaim that FKF will set up youth structures to scout for talent. Where will he keep them? Kandanda House at kasarani? As for Okumbi, he has no capacity by way of tactics that would trump those of say Adel Amrouche, Mohamed Gohary and Reinhardt Fabisch. He will continue to see Dark Forces, unless AFC Leopards, Gor Mahia, Tusker get down to real business of player production.