Fans, key to Gor Mahia stability

Gor Mahia fans belting out K'Ogalo tunes during a past league match.

Nairobi, Kenya: Gor Mahia is not going away from the headlines any time soon. After a sweet and sour season someone would ordinarily imagine things would get better for Gor Mahia. Essentially, one would have expected the club to by now be receiving overwhelming financial and logistic support from corporates as well as other well-wishers in the spirit of celebrating success. Well, nothing of that kind is coming K’Ogalo’s way so far.

Instead, there’s a mass exodus of players from the talented Baba Kizito to the legendary Dan Sserenkuma, remarkable absence from the on-going transfer business, feuding club officials with the Secretary General Chris Omondi reported to have resigned in a huff, and now the club chairman Ambrose Rachier says the club does not have money to compete – forget favorably – in next year’s CAF Champions’ League.

Mr. Rachier – who doubles up as the KPL Chairman – summed up his budget to be in the tune of around ten million shillings to be the very least to even think of taking part in the continental competition. This money, he said, would be used to strengthen his squad by signing top class players as well as preseason preparations.

The only asset that the club has continually boasted of for years is its mammoth following of a fan base. But even that is on the brink of a decline. Don’t get it twisted. The fans have continued to come back to watch and cheer the club but it has not translated to finances. In the period 2011 to 2013 Gor Mahia announced big monies in ticket sales ranging from Ksh.2.5M to 5.6M the best registered.

In 2014 however, those figures were mere fantasies as the club often celebrated posting Ksh.1.2M on a very good day. This is not to say the fans deserted them. No. In fact, I think there were more fans at K’Ogalo matches in 2014 than any other year. It is only that they chose not to pay for tickets but devised impish means of accessing the stadia either forcing their way in or greasing guards’ hands and denying their ‘beloved’ club its only source of revenue.

Generally, the Green Army is no longer as supportive to the club as it used to be in the years of reawakening in the local football circles. There is an alarming general dissent from the fans towards their club’s administration. This is not going to help matters at Kenya’s most successful football club. This trend is not trendy.  

The fans have to once again consolidate their efforts, reject divisive opinion, forget wrangles in their Executive Committee and forge a way to revive the club. That is the spirit that led to the renaissance we witnessed in the period stretching from 2006 to 2009.

Give it to them, Gor Mahia fans picked the league when it smelled in the trenches, dusted it off and made it as admirable as it is today. If there are wrangles on the control of money in the league, it is because K’Ogalo fans add flavor to it. That spirit should not be killed by allegations of mismanagement at the club. Gor Mahia needs fans that will see beyond these mere hullabaloos. When all is said and done, that piece of a club called Gor Mahia FC is the only thing that makes K’Ogalo nation rejoice.