Sh8.7m raised from Tunisia World Cup tie

A total of Sh8,747,900 was collected at the gates from the World Cup/African Cup of Nations qualifier between Kenya and Tunisia held at Coca-Cola National Stadium on March 28, according to official figures released by Football Kenya Limited on Tuesday.

Of the 27,000 tickets offered for sale, 24,507 were taken up by the public translating to 22,513 terrace tickets sold from the 24,000 on offer and 1,996 centre stand tickets sold from 3,000 on offer.

The figures, however, do not seem to tally with the actual attendance of the match which showed a crowd well beyond the 30,000 capacity at the Coca-Cola National Stadium.

“No one can verify how many people the stadium (Coca-Cola) can hold,” FKL senior vice chairman Titus Kasuve said. Even though Coca-Cola stadium lacks seats, official records of Sports Stadia Management Board, the managers of the facility, indicate that it’s official capacity stands at 30,000.

Kasuve, who announced the figures, also said many people may have gained access to the stadium for the match using fake tickets or recycling genuine ones.

“There was double entry. Also so many people arrived at the stadium just before the match and because of the overwhelming numbers all tickets may not have been verified,” Kasuve said.

Fifa, who had a security official for the match, appear to have taken note and have put conditions for Kenya’s next home qualifier including mandatory seat markings at the Coca-Cola stands.

Kasuve said FKL was committed to Kenya winning their next World Cup qualifying tie away to Nigeria and were making plans for the team to camp in a west African country ahead of the fixture.

The FKL technical bench will also meet to appoint a local assistant coach to Antoine Hey and a team manager for Harambee Stars.

FKL technical director, Patrick Naggi, had taken up those roles but appeared to even usurp the duty of Hey by calling up and dropping players and even coaching the national team drawing criticism from the football fraternity.

Naggi redeployed

“Naggi will not be anywhere near that team. His job is to unearth young talent all over the country,” Kasuve said. Kasuve also said a new Harambee Stars kit will arrive in the country later this month from official suppliers Adidas.

Harambee Stars were forced to play in an unfamiliar all-red kit after their official kit disappeared under storage at the Fifa Goal Project at Kasarani last month.

Kasuve said the new kit will come together with replicas and warned people against selling souvenir Stars shirts without the permission of FKL.

“We have now registered the logo. Anyone who wants to sell replica shirts should approach us and we agree on how we can do this. The revenue raised is for the Harambee Stars,” Kasuve said. FKL has contributed Sh5 million from gate collection to the Harambee Stars fund committee for World Cup preparations.