By John Nandwa
Whenever details have emerged on how much we pay our foreign coaches, there is a tendency for a debate to quickly degenerate into the wisdom of a third world country such as Kenya committing itself to such huge overheads.
In all likelihood, this explains why Football Kenya Federation (FKF) chose to remain tight-lipped on the contractual terms of Adel Amrouche when the Belgian was unveiled as Harambee Stars coach for the first time.
Indeed, from the failed stints of former Harambee Stars coaches, Bernard Lama, Antoine Hey, and Henri Michel, a debate has always centered on the salaries they picked up in their short durations managing the national team.
Some people rather mischievously, have gone as far as speculating that the wage bill of the four coaches would have been enough to cover the pay of one local coach for at least a decade, but perhaps the question to focus our minds is; can we afford to sacrifice the success of the national team on the basis of how expensive it is to retain the best coaches?
Take the case of the current World Cup qualifying campaign. Kenya stands to lose up to £26 million if the national team fail to reach next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil.
Just by making it to Brazil, FKF would be guaranteed £8 million in prize money — the minimum amount for teams eliminated in the group stage, a figure that has gone up 33 per cent from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The national team’s earnings rises up to £16 million if they reach the quarter-finals, which is a reasonable expectation for at least one African nation based on past tournaments, and £26.5 million for winning the World Cup outright.
And the cost of failure to businesses in the country as a whole could be a lot more – which would be bad news on businesses that stand to benefit from servicing the interest generated by the global showpiece.
Indeed, failure for the national team to make it to Brazil would deprive the wider Kenyan economy of the knock-on effect of having the country represented in a major football tournament, with retailers missing out on the surge in sales in beer, food and televisions that normally accompanies a country’s qualification for championship finals
Pubs, clubs and off- licences would bring in more in extra sales than they normally manage. Then there are the big supermarket chains hoping for “barbecue summers” to accompany a good run as well as TV retailers, bookmakers and even travel companies eager to cash in on thousands of fans flying down to Rio.
Harambee Stars 1-1 draw with Nigeria in Calabar last month has left Amrouche’s men with an uphill task to secure their place in Brazil next summer.
The result means Kenya stay bottom of the group with two points while Nigeria drop to second following Malawi’s win over Namibia in Windhoek. Namibia also drops, to third, then Malawi go top of the group.
Failure to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time portends serious implications for the FKF’s bank balance than the headache of worrying about the wages of hiring a foreign coach.
Rather than worrying about the contracts of foreign coaches, we should instead worry about the actual status of the national team.
Not qualifying for the World Cup would be more costly than the size of Adel Amrouche’s contract.
