Is Sports Fund another scandal in the making?

The Government wants to tax gaming companies 50 per cent of their gross revenue, create a fund to manage the money and apparently, get to sponsor and manage sports in the country through the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Arts using the new kitty. It sounds interesting on paper, but can we trust the ministry to handle such a task?

 The term youth must be the most misused in this country especially when people want to get quick cash to line their pockets and fund their self-interest projects. Look at the NYS and Youth Fund scandals that took place between 2014 and 2015 where mind-boggling cash was siphoned into people’s pockets under the guise of youth projects.

It sounds ridiculous to question this idea, after all that is what the ministry is mandated to do - manage sports - and this is what it should have been doing for the past 50-something years. However, the sports industry in Kenya has been struggling and the corporate world had shied from sponsorship due to massive corruption in the bodies that deal with the specific sports.

Kenya’s soccer giants, AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia went without sponsorship for years and the strain was directly reflected in the quality of the game. The ministry turned deaf and blind to problems facing clubs, because there was no money to be made in it.

Gaming company Sportpesa came on board and took over the Kenya Premier League sponsorship and some individual club sponsorship among them Gor and AFC Leopards; and in just two years, change is evident in our football industry. Like I said, a sports fund sounds like a good idea until you think about who is in charge of the ministry and its agencies that are supposed to manage the fund. Anthony Maina, Nairob