Why Kenyan EPL fans are traitors

I might forgive Kenyans for carrying strange European names they can’t pronounce, or speaking English poorly, if at all.

However, I can’t – and won’t – forgive them for slavishly worshipping the European Leagues. I particularly find the cultish-groupie following of the English Premier League bizarre. We know British imperialists and European Christian missionaries forcefully made us crouch and bent, whereupon they did horrible things to us. It wasn’t pleasant.

You get the picture. This was physical, direct domination. So, why would people who live in Kenya slavishly worship and submit to European – and not Kenyan – soccer without the threat of brute physical force of the White Man? There can only be one answer – they are traitors and betrayers of Kenyan soccer.

I know. I know. You will accuse me of speaking English and taking pleasure in watching American football and NBA basketball. My defense, even if you don’t like it, is that I live in Buffalo, New York and one of those teams – the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League – is my hometown team.

American football

That’s why I can legitimately enjoy watching it. I even physically go to watch the games at the stadium. One of my sons played American football in high school, and was very good at it. So, I have an organic relationship with American football. What excuse can any Kenyan living in Kenya give for their mental enslavement to the EPL? Search your conscience before you answer.

There was a news report of a Kenyan fan who committed suicide when “his” EPL team lost a crucial game to another EPL team. If I remember correctly, “his” team’s name rhymes with a disreputable body part.

I could see British Arsenal fans acting crazy, as they are wont to, but a Kenyan taking his own life over the team’s loss? Call it the theater of the absurd. What’s more disgusting is that British EPL fans are notoriously racist. They taunt Black players to the edge of depression.

Their choice weapon of abuse is calling Black players monkeys, or making monkey-like gestures and sounds. The EPL has done little to sanction the clubs for the conduct of their fans.

I have heard all kinds of excuses for this illicit, misbegotten, and contemptible love affair between Kenyans and the EPL. It’s the highest form of infidelity to Black pride. If Kenyans are going to “cheat” on Kenyan soccer, why can’t it be with South African, or even Senegalese, soccer? Or Nigerian soccer. Must they cross the Sahara, leap over the Mediterranean, and go all the way to that little country called “Great” Britain?

Build good things

Africans want respect. They even demand it. But they keep acting in ways that sabotage those demands. How can others love you if you don’t love yourself? If you don’t build good things at home, you will always hunger for what others have built. It’s hatred of self.

One excuse for this incredulity has been the so-called high level of the EPL game. Soccer lovers swear that watching the EPL is like watching a Kamba kamuti (magic) worker.

The Kenyan EPL fans, like those bewitched by kamuti, are enthralled into a state of exuberance and ecstasy. Glued to TVs, or hooked to their radios, the poor sods are rendered helpless by the wizardly of EPL players. They drool like children. They say you can forget Pele, the Brazilian soccer GOAT, if the EPL bug bites you. That may be so. The EPL may play the highest form of soccer. The answer for Kenyans isn’t to take leave of their senses. Build a better league in Kenya.

More power

Another argument is that scores of Black players, many African, populate the EPL, and are often better than their White European mates. Loving the EPL, we are told, is supporting “our boys” who went to play in Europe and became household names there and at home.

They make beaucoup cash. Many of them have more money than God. That’s fine. I celebrate their success too. More power to them. Some EPL teams are even owned by looters from Asia, or the Middle East.

By some count, 15 EPL teams are owned by foreigners. Why can’t many of these “Third World” billionaires grow soccer at home? Imagine the economic activity a good league would generate in a country like Kenya.

Some of my friends are diehard EPL fans. Two of them – prominent lawyers Donald Kipkorir and Ahmednasir Abdullahi – expend lots of Twitter ink on their teams. Imagine if their eminences turned their attention inwards and promoted Kenyan soccer? The mess that’s Kenyan soccer needs them.

It’s a dereliction of their national duty to covet the EPL. Even my mentor, ex-CJ Willy Mutunga, is guilty of this infidelity.

Methinks the adulation and adoration of the EPL by Kenyans is a traitorous betrayal of the country. We must banish this colonial hangover. We shouldn’t look to Europe and America for things that we can do at home.