No allowances: FKF leaves Stars stranded in hotel

Harambee Stars players during their training session on October 9, 2015 at the Ruaraka grounds. PHOTO | CHRIS OMOLLO |

What you need to know:

  • The players were left on their own at the team’s hotel room, some with no fare home.

Harambee Stars players are a demoralised lot after Football Kenya Federation failed to pay their allowances after Sunday’s 2018 World Cup preliminary qualifier against Mauritius.

The players were left on their own at the team’s hotel room, some with no fare home. The match ended in a barren draw with Kenya earning a berth to round two of the World Cup preliminaries courtesy of the 5-2 away win.

However, what followed thereafter, left many sports lovers in shock. Some of the players who did not have cash were left stranded in Nairobi.

Nakuru All Stars prodigy John ‘Softie’ Ndirangu, who was a late introduction in the game, had to seek help from his club boss Robert Muthomi.
Muthomi, who was not pleased with the federation, took to his Twitter account to express his disgust.

In a series of hard-hitting tweets on Sunday evening, he said: “The team’s allowances were not paid and Nyamweya did not pick calls. Way to treat a 19-year-old…”

In another tweet, he said: “Today, my player has had to call me late after the others left the hotel after the match. He was left stranded with no money.”

NOT OUR BURDEN

The players had threatened not to honour the Sunday game but assistant coach Musa Otieno talked them out of their plan. In a statement posted on its portal on Tuesday, the federation said that paying the national team players’ allowances is a responsibility of the Government as entrenched in the Sports Act.

“FKF wishes to put it on record that the Government, through the Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture, in fulfilling its mandate as prescribed in the Sports Act 2013, has undertaken to pay all the allowances as soon as the financial and public spending procedures are concluded.”

The federation has been on the receiving end over the air-ticket refund saga for foreign based players raising anger among football fans on social media.

Norwegian-based custodian Arnold Origi did not travel to honour the two-leg clash against Mauritius after the federation failed to refund him the Sh180,000 he used to purchase his return air-ticket for the Afcon qualifier against Zambia in Nairobi last month.