Boardroom rifts wearing team down

It was not going to be easy for Ingwe to win this year’s Kenyan Premier League given the long-running divisions within the Interim Management Committee (IMC), which preceded the current office.

No team can achieve much success when its managers are perennially engaged in petty squabbles as witnessed during the IMC tenure, with one faction allied to one Mathews Opwora and the other to the current chairman Dan Mule.

Day in, day out, members and supporters were treated to squabbling, with each faction competing for the loyalty of the players and the technical bench.

It was the norm rather than the exception to hear accusations and counter-accusations about a faction paying certain players to sabotage the team.

The mistake we members made was to take it for granted that the July polls to elect a substantive office would solve the problem once and for all. How mistaken we were! It’s too late, though, in the day to salvage anything.

Apparently, nothing has changed, with the current office as polarised as the previous “nusu mkate” one. How else do you explain leaks from anonymous officials to the effect that some six players had been axed for dissent immediately after the Ingwe-Sofapaka match a week ago?

And before one could even come to terms with the news, another anonymous source from a rival faction leaks a counter-statement saying no player has been sacked!

UNSIGNED STATEMENT

It later emerged, again from anonymous officials, that only five and not six players had been suspended for two weeks and not sacked.

Some of the affected players confirmed that they have indeed been given letters by the club leadership to stay away from the club for two weeks over disciplinary issues.

But even then, another unsigned statement was leaked, dismissing the reports and terming them as propaganda, despite the players having confirmed that they are indeed on suspension.

The latest statement admonishes the so-called propagandists and warns that henceforth, only the club’s secretary general, in this case one Oscar Igaida will speak on behalf of Ingwe.

With such a divided executive committee, can millions of die-hard Ingwe fans really expect positive results from the boys?

That is not in any way to suggest that the team is weak, far from it. We may have lost to Sofapaka, but the quality abounds in this squad. I must single out youngsters Alfred Wekesa and Haroun Nyakha for special mention in this case.

The executive committee must shun their differences and deliver, period. The future, I assure the Ingwe nation, remains great.