It is time to get Mr-Fix-it: Appealing Amrouche ban is a waste of our football resources by FKF

Kenya Coach Adel Amrouche against Comoros during their AFCON qualifiers match at Nyayo National Stadium on May 18, 2014.Kenya won 1-0. [PHOTO.BONIFACE OKENDO]

So the Football Kenya Federation is considering an appeal against the one-year ban on Harambee Stars Coach Adel Amrouche? This is exactly what is conventionally referred to as reversed priority.

We need to overturn the 1-0 deficit against Lesotho and make it to the group stages of AFCON 2015 qualifiers. To do so, we need a seriously dedicated coach to guide us. Then, and only then, should we consider — if at all we need to — talking about Adel Amrouche.

In my patriotic opinion, the ban on Adel Amrouche should be celebrated as a blessing in disguise. You see we cannot improve our football with a cocky, irreproachable, under-achieving and an almighty man in charge of our national football team.

This is a man who started writing his sacking, oops ban, script as soon as he was appointed. Sometimes we can tell how the story will end as soon as the opening line is scripted!

Look at the statistics: a brother has been in charge of the national team for seven competitive matches. Yes, seven! I have deliberately excluded the 2013 CECAFA Senior Challenge matches from my list because Mr Amrouche has not explained his mysterious absence from the bench when we played Ethiopia in the opening match. So I don’t recognise his contribution to that glory. Accept and move on, so we say this side of the Sahara!

Competitive matches

In the seven competitive matches we have played under the tutelage of His Highness Coach Amrouche, we have drawn 3, lost 2 and won 2 — a 29 per cent winning record. Class teacher’s verdict? Failure! Below average! Recommendation? Repeat class!

But he has won a couple of friendly matches, you may say. Well, friendly matches do not count for qualification to any serious tournament. In that case he should be hired for friendly matches only. Yes, we shall then become a nation that plays and wins only friendlies and goes to World Cup venues as spectators!

You see, we cannot improve our football when we have a coach whose only joy is fighting everyone around him from his assistant, match officials to senior players and locally based foreign coaches.

What Mr Amrouche failed to recognise is the fact that Kenya has only one striker, Dennis Oliech and, until we get a favourable replacement, he has to be handled with kid gloves. Those are the same gloves with which the federation has handled him for the thirteen months he’s been in charge of our national team.

Best striker

Oliech is not the best of strikers, but looking at the crop of players in Kenya, he is the best of all and deserves some respect. He is human and can err- the same way Amrouche himself erred by spitting on match officials in Moroni, verbally attacking match officials in Calabar and mysteriously disappearing when Kenya played against Ethiopia in the CECAFA tournament.

And here we are tweeting about Mr Amrouche’s ban forgetting that Edwin Lavatsa is back in the country after a frustrating outing in Algeria. This is another of Mr Amrouche’s pieces of advice that have fallen by the wayside.

We do hope that the ban meted out to him includes all football-related activities to ensure he does not  give advise our players badly on their career choices. During the ban, he should get an anger management coach to guide him, to tell him that match officials should be respected, that senior players who have brought glory to our nation should be respected and that coach Nandwa who was his assistant is a humble man who should not be tossed around.

The federation should forget about anything close to appealing the ban. We risk embarrassing our nation by doing so. Mr Amrouche had an altercation with the match officials in Moroni in the full glare of cameras and coach Ken Odhiambo and player Victor Wanyama quelled the ruckus he caused on the touchline. That is the man CAF has banned. And that is the man we are wasting our energy sympathising with.

Instead, if we truly are a serious football nation, we should focus our meagre football resources to getting a Mr-Fix-it to guide us through this little matter called Lesotho and dump us in the group stages.

We shall sort ourselves from there. For now, au revoir Monsieur Amrouche!