Olaba lavishes praise on Leopards

AFC Leopards coach, Tom Olaba, has paid glowing tribute to his players’ character after they rallied from behind to salvage a draw against Chemelil Sugar in their opening match of the season on Sunday.

In the face of poor decisions by centre referee, James Kagera, the 12-time champions battled from a goal down with 10 men to claim a point in a charged match at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

“The players did well, especially when we went down to 10 men. They (Chemelil) had frustrated us to that point so to go down to 10 men was a blow for us. But we fought hard and earned a point for our display and maybe could have won in the end. A draw is not the best result but I have to pay tribute to the players who worked ever so hard,” Olaba said.

New signing, Noah Abich, scored a late penalty to cancel Jared Omwenga’s goal for Chemelil.

No pushovers

For a second straight season, Chemelil took away a point from Leopards on the opening day of the season.

“They have always been a solid side which always frustrates other teams. Chemelil have a system of play that is hard to break down and so many teams will struggle against them.

They showed that they are no pushovers and will do the same to many other sides when they meet. It is a show of what to expect this season in the league,” Olaba said.

Elsewhere, Bandari have bemoaned the first leg fixture list, saying they will be overwhelmed.

In a letter to KPL CEO, Jack Oguda, Bandari secretary general, Ben “Break-dance” Oloo, said poor fixture spreading would seriously hurt the club financially, arguing that it will force them to incur expenses that they had not budgeted for.

Oloo is particularly unhappy that Bandari has had to arrange for a five-day training in Kisumu to honour this weekend’s fixture against Western Stima. They played Ulinzi Stars in Nakuru last weekend.
Oloo argues that their next fixture after Ulinzi should have been a home game.

“The manner in which our fixtures have been arranged is unfair as we will incur expenses that were not budgeted for, like training facilities, five days boarding and lodging, as well as other daily expenses,” he said, adding that such financial constraints might, in the long run, affect the team’s performance.

Oloo’s sentiments were echoed by KCB official, Agil, who said it was wrong for KPL to leave out the clubs technical benches from the league management on fixtures as they would have pointed out such anomalies.

Zoning regulation

“Technocrats, who are members of the technical bench, were left out of this very important part of the league, hence the quagmire in which we find ourselves. The league is bound to be disrupted as we try to fix the glaring errors that we are now seeing,” Agil said in a separate letter to KPL.

Oloo is now demanding that their weekend match in Kakamega this weekend be shelved and moved to another date, and that their match number, ten in total, which requires them to play in Muhoroni on May 12 and then Naivasha on May 18, be staggered.

The former international is, however, happy with the league idea of zoning teams geographically which, he says, has given Bandari a chance to get a bit more from the grants base.

The zoning regulation implies that those teams which travel greater distances to honour fixtures receive more money for expenses they need to meet in terms of boarding, accomodation and others.