Kasavuli, Aladwa! If the kitchen’s too hot, please step aside

‘I am busy doing nothing.”  That is a statement I can expect from the people masquerading as the administration of the great Kenyan club AFC Leopards. Charles Lamb once opined: “I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief.”  Of course these are oxymoron and they do make sense even though they seem totally opposite – honest thief.

Up until Friday evening, Ingwe fans were in the dark about their team’s match with Tusker that was to be played on Saturday. The lads had not practised for the whole week understandably because they have not been paid their salaries and allowances for the past three months.

The management must seriously assume that these players can fast for this length of time and of course with such comfortable supposition the Kasavulis and Aladwas are sleeping like babies during the night with a little rumble in their tummies due to the sumptuous dinners they swallow sans chewing. Why does someone fight hard to become one of the managers of a club and not perform?

Why do people want to do things they are not qualified for? There were times when all sorts of bad characters trooped to sports management to spruce up their images; they used sports as springboards to political office.

In those days, the players only got allowances since most of them were, anyway, employed in parastatals. It was easy to pretend to be the source of success for the team and get you bad intention of becoming a Member of Parliament.

Those days are gone and team management requires dedication, sacrifice and above all; the ability to attract funding for the club. It requires a professional who has no other intent but to keep the team growing. These kinds of characters are there but they cannot jostle their way to the top echelons of the club where politician wannabes are blessed with the ability to shove and push them out of the picture.

POSPONE

The best the club management could do was to write a letter to KPL asking them to postpone the match. The request was rejected for obvious reasons; how many more matches shall they postpone whenever they have not paid their players?

The next stage was to hold a crisis meeting on Friday, just a day before the match – to chart a way forward. Seriously, they could not have held the meeting early to assuage the suffering lads?
Well. They were busy doing nothing for most of the week since their mental abilities could not allow them to even pretend to think.

Thinking hurts their heads in the most awful manner and we expected them to just keep a deafening silence and hope the problem would solve itself. Just before the crisis meeting; another politician emerged with some moneybags and the press by his side.

Many teams are having financial difficulties but they are at least trying other ways to stay afloat.

Teams like Mathare United have been without sponsorship since 2008 and we never had them whining this much; Gor Mahia too is struggling but the management has always worked hard to meet the obligations of the club.

If the kitchen is too hot, may the Aladwas and the Kasavulis leave the den humbly and never return or else it shall be said they are doing all this accidentally on purpose.