Football: Big signings among clubs reveal shocking trend of poor development of players

BY TOM BWANA

Moses Odhiambo and Jerim Onyango. [PHOTO: FILE / STANDARD]

With the Kenyan Premier League transfer window yet to close, reports suggest a massive Sh18 million has been spent in the player signing market. While this indicates financial growth in the league, there is a worrying trend when it comes to player development at the clubs, mostly at the so-called big clubs.

Apparently the clubs are increasingly applying the ‘use and dump’ policy on their players. Take Tusker FC for instance and you realise something is not right. Of the players that won the league for the brewers in 2012, only seven will be available for selection in 2014.

While the issue might not be merely retaining players for the sake of retaining them, the other equally captivating point would be player development. Do the clubs believe in the players they sign? Every transfer window opens another window for clubs to jostle with big money for big players’ signatures and releasing others.

It gets even scarier with a look at former football giants AFC Leopards. This is a club that has over the seasons, on every transfer period, almost offloaded entire squads.

They have always gone into the market hunting for big names although they have often ended up a disappointed lot when such names become flops midstream. This season alone, the club signed nine top class players.

While still puzzled by Ingwe’s trend on players, the situation is not any better at their noisy neighbours Gor Mahia. Going into season 2014, Gor Mahia has retained only 47 percent of the players that won them the league last year. If coach Zedekiah Otieno would return to Gor today, he’d only recognise five players (Jerry Onyango, Solomon Nasio, Kevin Omondi, Musa Mohammed and Antony Akumu) - a mere 17 percent of the squad he had at the club in 2011.

Last season, Kakamega Homeboyz replaced an entire squad during the June transfer looking for success.

That is what puts these clubs on the cross roads between hunger for instant results and the long-term urge to develop players who would be injected into their senior teams.

Former Congo United coach Gilbert Selebwa calls it fast food tendencies. “It is an appalling situation at our clubs. They don’t want to develop players. They only want quick fixes and not long term.” further adding “this trend, if not checked, will ultimately kill our football.” Coach Selebwa even gave a scientific health allusion to it. “Fast foods are like pain killers. You think you are satisfied yet it’s only your stomach that is full.”

For big clubs, the situation is understandable to some coaches. Sony Sugar FC and former Harambee Stars coach Zedekiah Otieno put it this way. “Clubs want results. There’s a massive pressure at the top clubs level for silverware. If certain players cannot deliver the desired results then they have to go.”

But there have been situations where players who lift their clubs have shockingly ended up being offloaded during transfer windows. For instance one cannot understand why players who help their clubs get promotion to the KPL are always offloaded at the beginning of their top league careers.

‘Zico’ clarifies, “Sometimes it’s about the coaching instability that is a norm in our clubs. Each coach has his unique philosophies and the more clubs change coaches, the more players will be dropped and signed. It’s all about a working relationship.”

Some players can only deliver for coach Nandwa, while others can only deliver for Twahir. It’s therefore expected that if a club hires coach Manoah, for example, he’ll move there with players with whom he has a working chemistry.”

This probably would explain why Tusker Coach Francis Kimanzi has signed players he worked with when he was at 2008 KPL Champions Mathare United.