Kudos Gor for winning premier league title

Yesterday’s coronation of Gor Mahia as the Kenya Premier League champions was a deserving acknowledgement of the club’s pedigree with a record 16 league titles to its name.

This is a major accomplishment for a team that had been starved of success until it won its first league title after 18 years in 2013. Gor’s success must be recognised for two main reasons. The first is that it is a non-institutional club that has to source for funding to run the club because it has no parent institution to meet its financial obligations.

The second is that it has been able to hold onto its legion of loyal fans for more than half a century, ultimately developing into a strong commercial brand able to attract sponsorship from major companies.

The Football Kenya Federation (FKF) must now put incentives in place to encourage local clubs to be more successful at the regional and continental level. The last time a Kenyan club won a continental title was in 1997 when Gor Mahia won the Africa Cup Winners Cup (the Mandela Cup).  Success has been just as fleeting in regional championships with Tusker being the last Kenyan club to win the Cecafa Kagame Cup in 2008.

The challenge, therefore, is obvious.  Gor Mahia, and other clubs in the KPL must set their sights on winning regional as well as continental tournaments to be truly considered champions.