Let's talk Africa Let's talk Kenyan.

Image Courtesy of Getty Images. 

The world football is considered to be on the move. It is taking strides that are immensely being felt all over the world. However the movement is on the rise in Europe but Africa is lagging behind. The South African League can be seen as the most established league in Africa but it is still not there yet as South Africa is however not well-placed in the FIFA rankings. Having hosted the world cup in 2010, South Africa was opened to the world. Good infrastructure was put up in the country to support football. World Standard stadiums were built to host the tournament and were left for the country to use for its footballing activities once the tournament was over. 

South Africa through its Super sport, has pumped millions of dollars to the league to help in the growth of talent in the country and supply funds to the teams to help them meet their expenses and running of the clubs. With proper funds to facilitate the smooth transition of footballer from the lower leagues to the upper leagues, South Africa has been able to scale higher in the ranks. On the Saturday’s CAF Champions league final, South Africa had two representatives, one was Kaizer Chiefs and Pitso Mosimane (the South African Coach of Al Ahly).

Coming home, Kenya has got a wide range of talent to tap on and scale to greater heights. The rot is in the management at the helm. It is from the differences of who owns KPL that led to the departure of Super Sport from the Kenyan league. Super sport was a good platform to showcase our talent to the world and open doors for our young talented sportsmen. Good governance is a big challenge in Kenya’s sports administration which has experienced wrangles of the ownership of Kenya’s football. KPL has been running the league and transparency was the issue between the KPL and the FKF on how much they were earning from the Super Sport deal. 

FKF is the overall football governing body while KPL is a limited liability held responsible for managing the Premier League in Kenya. The two have never met and it is from their differences that they even draw away further. These wrangles at the helm accompanied with leaders with self-interest lead to suffering of the footballers down the line. Mismanagement of clubs then crops up and which is evident due to the lack of payment of staff and players forming a ring of appointing and managers’ walking away from their top jobs.

There is much to be learnt from the other leagues and to be replicated into our league. There is so much talent to be tapped on in Africa and so much talent to be invested on. Consensus Oriented, Accountable, transparent, participatory, effective and efficient measures should be implemented to ensure that there is proper management of funds and resources.