Dan Mule, the buck stops with you

To all my dear Ingwe fans, this is a season to forget very fast. If you have something worthwhile to do, please go ahead.

It was another season, same old problems. Petty boardroom wrangles, zero transparency in the management of club finances, arbitrary sacking of coaches and indiscipline in the playing unit.

One would have thought that with the sponsorship deal signed with SportPesa, things would get better. Far from it. We are still being treated to the same old problems of low salaries and non-payment of allowances to players and members of the technical bench.

The excuse this time round is that the bulk of the monthly disbursements from the sponsor goes towards offsetting dues owed to former players and coaches. Only last week, the Sports Disputes Tribunal ordered Ingwe to pay yet another former coach, Ivan Minnaert a cool Sh2.4 million for breach of contract.

One would have thought that this office learnt its lesson after spending its scarce resources to pay former coach Pieter de Jongh for wrongful dismissal.

To compound the problem, the club is also paying several former players their dues after it was found guilty of breaching their contracts. Can’t we ever learn? In the confusion, nobody accounts for the hundreds of thousands of shillings collected at the gates during Ingwe’s home matches.

The best fans can do for our beloved club is to confront our problems head-on. Granted, one of the problems is a poor player recruitment policy, which opens avenues for some busybodies to make a killing through hiring of otherwise below average players.

This season alone, Ingwe has hired and fired over 20 players in a span of just six months because of poor performance.

The bigger problems, though, are the petty boardroom wars which always trickle down to the playing unit, leading to poor performance. One would have thought that the elections held mid this year would have sorted out the differences. How mistaken we were!

Factions in the National Executive Committee (NEC) will never take a common position on any matter. With such a scenario, it is a miracle the team survived relegation.

One shudders to imagine what will happen next season if members don’t force these NEC characters to work as a team.

Dan Mule must be told in no uncertain terms to take charge of his team or ship out. As the chairman, he must take responsibility and give direction, we demand nothing short of that. It does not help to complain that he is being sabotaged — the buck stops with him.

Members must remain vigilant to thwart any attempts at sabotaging the club. Long live Ingwe, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!