Kenyans becoming tired of threats: Since he started promising the public action on FKF and AK, nothing tangible has followed

Orange Hockey team with their sports women team of the year during the 2014 SOYA Awards at KICC, Nairobi on 16-01-2015.PHOTO/DENNIS OKEYO

I want to start by congratulating winners at the recent Sports Personality of the Year awards (Soya).

They deserved their accolades. Although athletes seem to hog the limelight at every Kenyan version of Laureus Awards, the winners deserved the awards and it was fitting to see new and fresh faces like hockey, golf and motorsport.

That eight-year-old golfer Charlene Wangare is awesome. I hope officials are keenly watching her. That is material for some American golf academy and she could be the future Serena or Venus Williams.

Rally driver Nikhil Sachania, who won the award for sportsman with disability, is a story of resilience, which can inspire many people who see disability negatively. Sachania disabused such negativity.

Jos Ayuka, the Telkom Orange hockey team coach, has proved everything locally and should now turn his eyes abroad for a professional career, lest he finds himself on a plateau. For him to win coach of the year award and his team to take team’s slot is not something to take for granted.

However, such awards can make some people want to cheat. Cheating comes in many forms, but the most common in Kenya is by doping, faking age and hiring mercenaries. Gate keepers must up their game to ensure teams win fairly.
Which brings me to the next point.

Sports Cabinet Secretary, Dr Hassan Wario, may find out, if he has not, that rhetoric and empty threats are just that if no real actions follow. Sooner rather than later, the honourable minister, with whatever good intentions he has for sports, risks irrelevance.

He chose a wrong forum to convey his message to Athletics Kenya (AK), Football Kenya Federation (FKF) and Kenya Rugby Union (KRU), messages that I don’t entirely disagree with.

Soya Awards are to celebrate our sportspersons. Certainly what is going on in those federations is despicable. But since he started promising the public action on FKF and AK, nothing tangible has followed.

Our sports is continuing on the downward slide. Other federations are following suit. Hence KRU is now caught up in this vicious web. For they see nothing happening to the main culprits.

FKF and AK should have been dealt with long ago. Sponsors are pulling out of Kenyan sports. The losers are the youth. Even rugby, the gentleman’s sport, is now in the same vicious circle.

I doubt if some of their main sponsors like Safaricom, who sponsors the Safari Sevens, will take it any longer. Those who chose to remain will do so, but on their own terms. Will the sport, and the youth, get their worth?

So Bwana Waziri, save this country the embarrassment of being banned by international sports due to doping by cleaning AK. At the rate officials are resigning, clean the KRU as well and put FKF where it belongs.

You rightly said that Kenya is never short of talent. We are not even short of managers as you opine. Managers are aplenty, but the process should start at the vetting stage.

If even vetting is manipulated and criteria put in place circumvented, our sports end up in wrong hands.

— The writer is the Senior Associate Editor, Sports ([email protected])


 

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