Kenya Football .:. Story - Harambee Stars: The Next Plan!

HARAMBEE STARS: The Next Plan! - kenyafootball.com image

By Mathew Oduor

If there is something so beautiful and amazing in the Kenya football industry, it is its national team. The Kenyan football fraternity loves its team very match but the question is to how much weight of passion and love they put in vis a vis the results?

Last week my friends and I were talking about football. Of course that is what boys and men do when they get to hang out and have fun. After brutal exchanges about the league a twist came in as we started talking about our uniting factor the Harambee stars.

Then I started hearing their views of how KFF is nothing but a bunch of people with leverage to quench their thirst for fame. Most of them didn’t know how to tackle the problem facing the KFF and everyone was just floating with incomplete ideas. I took the role of a listener as I heard the many views. With each idea that sounded good there was someone out to discourage it saying it wouldn’t work.

Some came with the idea that it would be good if the national team was a charity organization with someone elected as it chairperson/president and the whole population to donate money to run its affairs. The argument here is KFF can never be trusted again.

I somehow agreed with them on that idea but as we all know, the football industry lacks trust amongst its members, stakeholders and fans.

Harambee stars have not qualified for world cup but its performance has just been worsening and it has become a struggle to even put a decent game together.

And after recently being thrown out of the inaugural Cup of Nations Championship (CHAN) by Tanzania, the question is what next needs to be adopted to make Harambee Stars come out and shine again?

The answers are many but may be just a few may work.

One of the answers is that the Harambee stars be left to the well organized KPL Company to manage and run its affairs. This is a statement one of my friends came out with and when asked why he stated that last season the league managed its affairs without even having enough funds to sustain it but still it was competitive and exiting to watch the league.

He then states that it will be the KPL’s responsibility to get the most qualified coach and that they have the National Executive Committee (NEC) which will do the work of selecting players in terms of their performance with the help of the club coaches who will act as advisers
but not implementers. When I asked my friend about funding he quickly mentioned it wouldn’t be an easy task but they can campaign harder as they did to land a sponsor for the Premier League. The government too, he mentioned will need to extend a helping hand to provide funds for the national team.

The other idea which is in every other persons mind is that KFF run the team with the help of the government. But there is a question-mark since the KFF doesn’t even know how to take care of itself financially. But that idea comes to halt after realizing that KFF is nothing but a name.

In conclusion, for Harambee Stars to come back to life, the number one thing is to constitute a technical panel that will select players according to the merit of their performance in the league and that the same should apply to those players residing abroad.

The second step is for KFF, KPL and The Sports Ministry which is a government department to come together to look for funds and sponsors for the national team. This will keep the team always ready to play and perform at anytime.

The third and final step is for KFF to arrange competitive international friendlies for the national team. This will enable the fans to watch and cheer their team during home friendlies. The gate collections can then be channeled to the National team’s kitty and a financial report made public.