Questioning Harambee Stars’ welfare is in order
Do they look hungry? Well, the Harambee Stars players did not look hungry at all to us.
We watched them in training before they left for the fateful date with Sierra Leone.
Have they complained? Well, they did not complain at all. In fact, we thought they looked contented if not happy, that was our ignorant view of things at the training camp.
Those questions were posed by the president of Football Kenya Federation Nick Mwendwa to the press after they asked why the Harambee Stars players were only receiving Sh750 per day as allowances. It bothered him so much that this kind of question was being asked at “the wrong time”.
The timing was not good at all because the Stars were just about to depart for an international assignment in Freetown and the “non-serious”’ people like me wanted to know why the allowances for our players was less than a menial workers’ taking in a day. To Mwendwa, we non-serious people were almost “unpatriotic”.
He quipped: “Government takes care of national team’s welfare for national assignments, it pays for their expenses.”
He was of course worming himself out of the serious issue. He wished to add some sting to it: “We are going for the most important assignment but non-serious people bring up this issue which is legitimate but It shouldn’t come at this time that they need to concentrate before travelling to this big assignment."
"Why didn’t you raise it last year, or last month? It is unacceptable.”
The issue of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) cropped up. The storm and stress over their judgement on salaries has left the country’s labour market aflame with strikes and threats of strike being the order of the day.
These people took a keen gamma ray look at all the athletes and found out that Victor Wanyama and David Rudisha are worth Sh750 per day as allowances!
The FKF supremo was of the same opinion as he threw barbs at the former people who ran the federation: “Any athlete be it Wanyama or Rudisha gets Sh750 per day and that is the policy. I found it in place and it has been there for up to three years. We felt it is low so the federation adds another Sh750 for Sh1,500 a day but we understand that is still not enough."
It is only the last statement that we agree with: it is not enough.
We expect the FKF to think deeper about this issue and see ways in which they can help the stars better, motivate them and forget about the ministry and the cabinet secretary for sports who is still in Rio and looking for his way back! We are glad that the Stars travelled smoothly to Sierra Leone and did not have to board the miraa plane that once took them to Cape Verde.
