By ROBIN TOSKIN
Francis Kimanzi’s tenure as Harambee Stars coach appears to be grinding to an end less than eight months since his second coming.
In a press statement from the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) on Monday, the 36-year-old’s fate is nigh.
“We are looking into issues of overhauling the entire technical bench and injecting more young blood in the playing unit in our efforts of rebuilding Kenyan football,” the statement signed by FKF chairman Sam Nyamweya said.
Kenya were tossed out of the 2013 Africa Nations Cup qualifiers following the 1-0 defeat to Togo accounted for their exit on away goal rule. Kenya had won the first leg on February 29, 2-1.
And following a stale scoreless draw at home to Malawi and 1-0 defeat to Namibia in Group F of the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, FKF appears to have lost patience with man initially hailed as Harambee Stars’ messiah given his good record in 2008.
Nyamweya described the aftermath of Lome defeat as, “a sad day for our football.”
The team is expected back on Tuesday and Kimanzi would be expected to present a technical report.
But with Nyamweya saying, “the federation gave the team and technical bench all the support in conjunction with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Sport and ensured the team was well received by our embassies in Namibia and Ghana,” Kimanzi’s goose appears cooked.
FKF said: “We also ensured, a week’s training at Kasarani, two-weeks closed door training at Kenya School of Monetary Studies, provision of air tickets for professional players he identified, ensuring captain Dennis Oliech and keeper Arnold Origi were back in the team after announcing their retirement from international football.”
Apart from that FKF said the paid full allowances, three-day training camps in Namibia and Ghana as well as full payment of away allowances in advance before they played Togo.
FKF chairman also admonished his assistant, Sammy Sholei, for issuing a parallel statement before he had even seen Kimanzi’s technical report.
“We request our NEC members to take collective responsibility regarding the performance of Harambee Stars rather than pretending to work as outsiders and if there are any issues, should be channelled before NEC,” Nyamweya said.
