Kenya Football .:. Story - How Kenya Can Qualify For The World Cup

How Kenya can qualify for the World Cup - kenyafootball.com image

By Fred ‘Omosh’ Ambiso

I have a prescription on how we can qualify for the World Cup !

Here is my advice to whomever, is in charge of football in Kenya today;

Advertise both locally and internationally, for FIFA qualified football coaches/administrators from all over the world. Carefully select and assign up to seven prospective but provisional national team coaches. Organize local divisional football competitions and give the new coaches full authority to select their teams in readiness for the regional competition.

The selected coaches would then be exposed to what I choose to call “a three week interview process”, meaning that after they select the provincial teams, the new coaches would then be given all the support they desire to mould their specific regional teams based on time tested football philosophies and plans. The country would then be subjected to a three week inter province ‘crush’ competition, that we may for instance call ‘Kenya Provincial Cup Tournament’.

With corporate and governmental support, the provincial competition could be used to select a new national team. However for the above program to succeed, it would be paramount that the assigned provincial coaches be provided with full administrative, managerial and financial support. I am convinced that the Government, through the Prime Ministers office could be impressed upon to support the above plan. After all, the Prime Minister is a huge soccer fan who has often made his feelings known, in regards to Kenya being ably represented in the next world cup.

This ‘three week’ interview process would provide a very transparent way of identifying a qualified coach. It is my belief that this process would also help weed out the pretenders. Given that Nairobi, Rift Valley, Coast and Nyanza provide the bulk of the players in the country, it may become necessary to either send overflow players to the other weakly represented provinces or just have multiple teams from the provinces that provide the richer pool of players. Many may ask, ‘what about the Kenyan professional players who play overseas? For logistical purposes, I would promote the idea of giving them a ‘direct’ pass to the provincial teams but ascertain that they compete for positions like everyone else, once assigned a team.

At the end of the three week competition, I would select up to forty players and commit them to prolonged residential training that will involve many friendly outings with local and international foes. Folks, we do not have much time. The Africa Cup of Nations is just around the corner!