Flying national flag on empty is the curse of Kenyan football teams

Kenyan Premier League champions Gor Mahia are preparing for next year’s Africa Champions League without a sponsor.

Boldly emblazoned on their jerseys is the paybill number through which any Kenyan who feels sufficiently philanthropic - unlike good old Kenneth Marende - can M-Pesa them something small to meet their expenses.

Yet these don’t come cheap. To prepare and send a team for the African championship requires calculating in seven figures through most of the expenditure items.

Unless, of course, one does not know what he is doing. You might think this is common sense, but in Kenya it is not.

Somewhere in between league matches, Gor Mahia sent out a warning: without a sponsor they could win the title but be unable to participate in the Champions League if none were found.

That is when they launched the donations number 350100.

If you think this is a recent phenomenon, I have news for you – it has been around for probably longer than you have been in this world.

The designers of the M-Pesa campaign to shore up the club could be accused of recycling what they did in 1979, this time only taking into account faster methods of money transfer.
FUNDS EXHAUSTED
Believe it or not, after defeating defending champions Horoya of Guinea 1-0 at the City Stadium, Gor sent out an appeal. They said they had run out of money and could no longer afford to keep their players training.

In a news report in October, 1979, the Daily Nation told its readers: “Kenya’s representatives in the Africa Cup Winners’ Cup tournament, Gor Mahia, may be forced to abandon their camp unless money is found within two days to meet their training expenses.

Speaking to the Nation on Friday, David Opar, vice-chairman of the club, said the club had now exhausted the funds set aside for training.

“He appealed to the public to come forward with generous donations to help meet the club meet the training expenses. Opar also appealed to the Kenya Football Federation officials to change their attitude of ‘isolating the club’.

He also appealed to officials of other clubs to help with donations, however small they were.”

The vice-chairman described the club’s condition as “very serious” and appealed to the media not to treat his plea as “just another press statement.”

He said: “There is no money at all and if we cannot get help in two days’ time, we shall have no alternative but to release the players from the camp.”

DIRE STRAITS
Then as now, donations started streaming in. The camp wasn’t broken. And, as they say, the rest is history which, as we all know, keeps on repeating itself. That’s how Paybill Number 350100 comes in 35 years later.

One of my big frustrations with clichés is that they became clichés, which means the wisdom in them is no longer taken seriously. Take the one that says that those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

If you said or pointed that out to a Gor Mahia official past or present he would almost blithely tell you: I’ve heard that before; tell me another. But think for just once you are hearing it for the first time and give it all due consideration.

Imagine the difference it would make in your life. But it is a cliché and you are impatient to hear what next.

Yet if the difficulties that Gor Mahia experienced in 1979, if they meant anything at all to the officials then, would almost certainly have pre-empted the terribly dire straits the club finds itself in today.

Wise officials would have resolved: this must not happen again. They would have mobilized not just the financial resources that temporarily solved the players’ allowances problem, but they would have gone further and put in place measures that would permanently forestall a repeat.

They would have mobilized the club’s intellectual resources, which are abundant by any measure anywhere to chart a path to greatness not just in the playing field, but in economic self sufficiency.

RETAIL POLITICS
Unfortunately, what happened was a continuation of the other activity that is the bane of the club’s life: retail politics.

All of Gor Mahia’s greatness happened before the advent of the mobile telephone yet the reason one official gave me for his despair and decision to quit was based on behaviour that is a typical by-product of today’s technological progress.

He was deeply mystified by the goings on then.

He told me: “I love this club and I sometimes feel as if I can die for it. But I won’t be here for long. I must leave because the way things are going, I see no future. I am a professional and I must account for the days of my life.

“It begins with small but very annoying things like the technical bench announcing the starting line-up of the day only two hours before kick-off but that is enough time to get you inundated with phone calls from Homa Bay, Kisumu, Awendo and such other places with people demanding to know:

‘Why is Austin not playing? Why is Enock not playing? He is in top form! Why has Socrates been left out? Why, this, why that, why... .it has become too much.

And you wonder, how did they get to know this? The team has been announced with just enough time to prepare the players and none whatsoever for just that kind fan meddling! But it seems even that doesn’t work. I’ve had it.”

A PERIPHERAL MATTER
This preoccupation with small things by the club’s leaders and rank and file membership has taken when all along the opportunity to become truly great was beckoning.

Some of its leaders were elected into Parliament not least because they rode on its name.

My once colleague in this job, Mike Ngwalla, who wound up as Parliament’s Public Relations Officer before continuing with pursuits, once lamented to me how none of those elected to the House as a result of their association with Gor Mahia ever found time to use their new status to uplift sports and the club in the process.

None sponsored legislation that could improve the lot of sportsmen and women. Once inside there, it was over, until, of course, the next election.

Ngwalla said: “Sport is regarded in Parliament as a peripheral matter that does not warrant much attention from national leaders. There have been occasional questions asked pertaining to various aspects of sport in Parliament, but they have been few and far between.

The advancement of sport in general and football in particular does not appear to be a national priority for either the Government or Members of Parliament.

“In Kenya, it is much easier and far more glamorous to acquire wealth through corruption than through playing football or any other sport.

In Kenya, if you become wealthy by doing nothing, people give you a lot more respect and admiration.”

POLITICIZED NATION
Not all the shortcomings of Gor Mahia can be attributed to its membership. Kenya as a society has quite often been too politicized for its own good.

People engage in political gossip for the sake of it forgetting the important business of building a prosperous social life.

The presidential edict to disband so-called tribal clubs purportedly to increase national cohesion hurt Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards badly and their decline started at around that time.

Their feeder clubs disappeared. They were intimidated. But it had nothing to do with national integration, just control. And centres of mass appeal such as the two clubs became targets of destruction so that there was only one institution for national veneration – the Presidency.

But that is all water under the bridge. We live in freedom, hard won freedom. It is time to think beyond appealing to our charitable hearts.

It is time to start convincing us that the money you want from the hard working people of Kenya will be invested for good and that there will be no need to come back and beg for more.

A time comes when people must stop and do some hard thinking – not continue doing things the old way. It was understandable for David Opar to appeal for training funds for the players 35 years ago.

CAPABLE OF GREATNESS

But if the same appeals are being made today, what better proof is there that despite their education, the leaders of the club have actually retarded?

The appeals for donations made in 1979 came at a time when the team was going for the big trophy itself – what about today? Is the team realistically hoping to become African champion?

Gor Mahia has proved, again and again, that it is capable of greatness. It must start by making an institution of itself. Neighbouring clubs that the club routinely crushed, like Tanzania’s Yanga and Simba, have places to call home.

It is time for Gor Mahia to go the same way. In the 1970s and 80s, fans of the club could tolerate official mediocrity in exchange for rousing encounters with Zamalek and Kabwe Warriors.

But if they put up with it now, what will they get in return?