2014 thus far, Kenya's Sports dwindling influence?

This year started with a lot of optimism given that the then newly elected Government had come with a basket full of promises...pardon my pessismist self who takes politicos and sports officials with a pinch of salt.
Well they had even the Sports Bill which was finally passed last year to provide grounds for new dawn in Kenyan sports. But alas!
Starting with the people's game of football, Kenyan clubs were bundled out of the pre-qualifying stages of continental club championships. That it was Kenya'biggest clubs reduced to cheer leaders tells a lot of what needs to be done to the same. This showed the need to streamline club activity in Kenya.
Onto to athletics, even though Kenyan athletes made a good showing at the continental championships in Kampala, our rivals in Ethiopia and other East African countries are no longer shoo-ins to be taken for granted. An interesting observation too must be made on our long distance runners especially marathon. While Kenyan has a wealth of talent, their margin of success is restricted to 2-3 wins before fading off. Look at Ethiopia, the same athletes who ran the 5K & 10K have now switched to the half and full marathons...it's only a matter of time...
Volleyball, and our Kenyan ladies have always been continental queens....? Well not anymore! Losing the North Africans, our sisters were given a reality check on what other countries have been doing and are capable of doing. There has also been such a disconnect between continental and world championships. Kenya has performed dismally in the latter and Kenya Volleyball Federation doesn't have clue of what to do.
Cricket, oh the Englishman's game! Well Kenya has sunk so low, that we couldn't qualify for the Twenty 20 tournament played by both Test and non-Test nations.  What is more worrying is that our neighbours Uganda and Rwanda are developing better teams and it's only a matter of time before we are dethroned.
As for rugby,  it's a mixed bag with the 7s team tempering our expectations while the 15s side  made small but significant strides in South Africa as we wait for the Worl Cup qualifiers later thus year.
Boxing too is reporting a  bit of life after being knocked out for several years off the national sports agenda.

• What has been symptomatic across the board is lethargic sports officials.  We have been there before on the need to elect pragmatic officials.  It's an ideal situation but tenable for some if not majority of the sports bodies. 
• Laxity from the Government.  While some sports associations behave like untouchables, they're more that the Secretary of Sports and Culture can do than the mere pronouncements.  For starters, invoking the Sports Bill and its statutes is one way. 
• Accountability - audits on the sports bodie should be regular and recommendations acted upon. This should be from both Government and sponsoring companies.  When players go on national duty and come back without having been paid their allowances is an abomination in this time and age. 
• International best practices - when our sports people participate in international events, what do they learn? Or are they busy visitng other less important business as opposed to taking notes on their call of duty? 

There's still the second half of the year to look forward to and hope that there are better and sterling performances.  The list below shows some of the sporting events to look out for; 

• Commonwealth Games
• IRB Rugby series 2014/15 
• IAAF Grand Prix meets 
• World Cup qualifiers (rugby)
• Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers

Kenyan Club Football - Faltering at many levels

Over the weekend, besides the Kenyan Premier League fixtures, two of Kenya's clubs were representing the country in the continental club championships - Tusker FC at home to Rwanda's Armee Patriotique Rwandese (APR) FC ( first leg of Round 1 of CAF Champions League) while Gor Mahia was away in Maputo Mozambique to Ferroviaro de Maputo. ( first leg of Round 1 CAF Confederations Cup)
Homeboys Tusker could only afford a 0-0 draw which makes their work hard going to Kigali a few days time. Not taking advantage of the home crowd and wasting chances to at least secure a goal will most likely cost the club any continental exposure. They must pray that they can get their skills up and find winning ways in the return match. A scoring draw will safely see them through thanks to an away-goal advantage.

K'Ogalo as Gor Mahia's fondly known to its fans on the other hand saw 3-0 past their own net to Ferroviaro which will require some real inspiration to cancel out and eventually beat to qualify. For the longest time I have said that the team lacks technical skills and this was exposed once again on this game. It must also be remembered that their win last year of FKL's Cup after seeing passage as one of the best losers. That was never resolved & FKL's oversight might cost the country a place on the continent's other major club championship.
Listening to the club chairman's seek to make comparison to last year's Sofapaka's miraculous mauling of Egyptian opposition was stretching it a bit too far. As one may remember, the political and social situation in Egypt was very unstable and still is thus the lack of inspiration for the players and clubs. The Egyptian national team missed the Africa Cup of Nations despite having been reigning champions early this year.
All's not lost though cos as they say 90min is a lifetime in any football game and again, Gor Mahia has one of the largest following in the country and are likely to sermon those strengths to add their 12th man in the return match.
The bonuses promised by their sponsors should also seek to inspire the players - as is expected in an election year, many a politician will seek to support such club exploits if only for some political mileage, take advantage!
We wish both clubs all the best in their respective return matches!

Sofapaka - Truly Batoto ba Mungu!

Finally Kenyan clubs can start smiling with Sofapaka getting into the next round of the CAF Confederations Cup. This next stage represents the play-off stage before proceeding to the Group stages which shall be again on home-&-away basis .

Image courtesy of www.michezoafrika.com

These teams are divided into 2.Winners of each group meet in a final deciding match and the winner of this proceed to meet the winner of the CAF Champions League in the CAF Super Cup. The beauty of this stage is that there is the promise of prize money as follows;
Winner of CAF Confed Cup : $ 625,000 for the club and $35,000 for the national association; Runner-up (Losing Finalist):$ 432,000 for club and $30,000 for national association;
2nd placed team in each group: $ 239,000 and $25,000 respectively;
3rd-placed team : $ 239,000 and $ 20,000;
4th-placed team: $150,000 and $15,000.
(Source: Wikipedia.com)

This is a welcome gesture to the teams and especially so for Sofapaka whose chairman Elly Kalekwa has been quite vocal and hoping to make good of the lucky run. We wish the team well and hope they keep their fortunes in the continental challenge together. It is also welcome relief for Francis Kimanzi who's Kenya Premier League losing streak had Sofapaka diehards starting to question his tactics.