The delicate art of refereeing requires a firm touch, just ask GMT Ottieno

GMT Ottieno, Chief of Technical Services, Safety and Security at the Kenya Premier League and whose name has been a by-word for the nation’s football refereeing for the last 40 years, has been in the thick of it all.

He has drawn a knife at a wayward player who wanted to follow up the spit he had spluttered on GMT’s face with probably a blow or two, has been to police stations to fill up P3 forms and checked into hospitals to mend wounds obtained in the line of duty. He also delivered and suffered hard slaps decades before Kenyans populated their blogs with the names Evans Kidero and Rachel Shebesh.

It took him 16 years before he could become a Fifa referee – and all because he says he couldn’t bring himself to fall into line with the universally accepted Kenyan tradition of greasing palms to get ahead.

He says: “People have sold cows. People have sold plots to buy positions at Fifa level even as recently as last year or the year before. But those who do that don’t last even a year because you go there and you are not competent; you can wear that badge yes, but you won’t get another match – not after your shoddy performance!”

After the long haul – 20 years as a full time referee between 1973 and 1993 and subsequently as a Caf and Fifa match commissioner - he became a Fifa referee instructor, the highest grade in the trade, in 2005.

Referee work in the world’s most popular game is not for the fainthearted. You make instantaneous decisions before tens of thousands of highly partisan fans with perhaps millions more watching or listening on television and radio. They deem to know the rules of the game better than you do and pass swift judgement on your performance.

You also endure the entreaties of corrupt officials. If you refuse to play ball, you become a marked man. GMT freely admits that he has been a life-long Gor Mahia supporter but has never allowed his private preferences to cloud his professional judgement. Actually, some of his hospital visits have been courtesy of irate Gor Mahia supporters.

He discloses that he has helped the club in cash and kind on several occasions “as and when called upon” but “what I have never done is lean towards Gor Mahia when officiating a match. As a result, this has put me in some trouble with Gor Mahia supporters. They say, ‘this guy pretends to be our supporter but he never gives us penalties!’

“And I always tell them; ‘gentlemen, if I give you a fake penalty and you become champions and then you go to Cairo and I am not there, who will give you penalties?’”

His worst run-in with his dear brethren was in 1983. After a disastrous 1982 season, Gor Mahia recruited Len Julians as coach. Julians rapidly turned around the team, with a special focus on youthful players. In his first season in charge, he won the league for Gor. But Julians came as a package; he had a volcanic temper.

On the night Gor won the league, ecstatic officials let their players go and have a good time. But they had a Moi Golden Cup game against Black Mamba the very following day, an exceptionally stupid fixture arrangement on the part of the officials.

This is how GMT recalls things: “A particularly bad moment of my long career was this one. I don’t know why these matches were put that close. Clearly, Gor were going to celebrate their league win, which they abundantly did. Now, came their Black Mamba game. When Gor came to the field, they were not able to play.

“As soon as the match started, Gor conceded an own goal through Abbas Khamis Magongo. It was a back pass that went awry. You can’t cancel the goal. Soon afterwards, Black Mamba scored another one; it was a direct free from outside 18. Gor rallied and scored one goal in the second half. But it was too late; the match ended 2-1 for Black Mamba.

“As I was walking out, Eric Omwango, the Gor secretary, pointed out to me the stadium clock, suggesting I had ended the match prematurely. I told him ‘my friend, referees never use stadium clocks. I have my stop watch. Look, I’ve even played three minutes for the stoppages that Black Mamba were causing deliberately.

“As I was talking to Omwango, Len Julians came over and kicked me. Then George Otieno Solo joined in and punched me. And then, one of their reserve goalkeepers, Maira came and kicked me. I was saved by one of my assistant referees, Alfred Okoth and the police. From there, I went to Aga Khan Hospital, got treated and next morning I went to Lang’ata Police Station, recorded a statement and obtained a P3 form.

“I had Julians and Otieno Solo arrested and arraigned before a Kibera court for assault. Maira disappeared. It was then that they realized that I was not going to let anybody get away with it that they started suing for peace. Through an intermediary, a fellow former referee named Isaac Alando, they said: ‘Thuol odonjo e ko’. Loosely translated it means ‘The snake has entered the milk guard’ which means the issue is an in-house matter. They paid all my medical expenses and I dropped the charges.”

But that was before his encounter with John Arieno and George Nyangi. Who were these people? Arieno was a towering AFC Leopards stopper who was mysteriously nicknamed “Papa”. He was a huge, sluggish man who did little running. But passing him seemed nigh impossible.

LIVEWIRE WINGER

Once I asked Nashon “Lule” Oluoch, Gor Mahia’s livewire winger, how such people always managed to be where they should be and become monumental headaches to fast forwards and he replied: “I think they play a lot of their football with their brain.”

Anyway, Arieno, who rarely ventured upfront save to anticipate corner kicks because his head was high, made a rare foray up field and GMT, who was an assistant referee, caught him offside. An enraged Arieno reacted by spitting smack on GMT’s face.

“In 20 years as a referee the worst thing a player did to me was when John Arieno spat on my face,” says the whistler today. “Spitting into somebody’s face is one of the dirtiest things anybody can do to another person and I couldn’t stand it. That was my worst and lowest moment ever in all the years that I have dealt with football players.

“Arieno thought he was not offside but he was. When he spat on me, I responded with a thundering slap on his face. During those days, we were allowed to carry a knife. Arieno attempted to come at me in response to that slap and that’s when I produced my knife.

“I told Arieno to his face, ‘If you think you have no blood, come and touch me again’ Then the police intervened and they wanted to check if indeed I had a knife, which I had. I threw it to the Gor Mahia supporters. The reason we were allowed to carry knives was because if a player was injured on the foot, it may have become necessary to use it to cut the laces quickly so as to remove the boot.

“But these days it is not allowed. But in Latin America, referees even carry guns. I remember reading, was it four years ago, about a referee who shot two people in the field, either in Argentina or Brazil, because he was being attacked. Yes, but it is not allowed.”

Next, George Nyangi. There was a league match between Nakuru’s Scarlet and Thika’s Kenya Taitex Mills, KTM for short. Before the game, the KTM chairman, Abu Nurein, made a telephone call to GMT’s house. GMT, who wasn’t at home at that time, got the message from his wife.

On a hunch, he suspected something was not right; he shouldn’t be taking calls from a high KTM official so soon before the match. He told his wife: “If he calls again, tell him I am not in.”

Which is what exactly happened. Nurein called again, this time when GMT was at home. But GMT’s wife told him the referee was not in. The following day, KTM beat scarlet 2-1. Nurein didn’t utter a word to GMT, though he was in a position to and GMT was happy about it, though a tad surprised. He was sure Nurein’s calls were intended to influence him but since the game had gone KTM’s way, Nurein apparently thought the purpose of his calls had been overtaken by events.

That was on Saturday. In Nairobi on Sunday, GMT showed up at Nyayo Stadium to watch the day’s league game. Scarlet, who were on their way back to Nakuru, were there, too.
For those who may not know, Scarlet, based in Lanet, was the Kenya Defence Force’s top-rated football team of the time. In those days, KDF had several teams including Kahawa FC and Kahawa Canons. They were all consolidated to form what is today Ulinzi FC.

As soon as Scarlet’s player, George Nyangi saw GMT, he made haste to where the referee was – at the turnstile - and delivered a thundering slap on his cheek.

“You made us lose yesterday’s game!” he charged angrily. “You gave it to KTM!”

A petrified GMT, when he came to, says he asked Nyangi: “Nyangi, is it me who was playing or is it you was playing?” He didn’t await the reply nor did he watch the match. He headed out to Lang’ata Police Station and did the ritual recording of statement and obtained a P3 form. Then he went to Aga Khan Hospital for treatment of his now swollen left jaw.

MILITARY POLICE

For 46 years until two years ago, GMT was a choir member at the Holy Family Basilica, Nairobi. At the time of the Nyangi slap incident, the choir chairman was Lt Col Titus Githiora, like GMT a staunch Catholic. Githiora, a lawyer by profession, eventually retired from the KDF as a Brigadier. From Aga Khan Hospital, GMT went and told his fellow choir member what had happened. That was the start of Nyangi’s problems.

Githiora reportedly told GMT, ‘Give me the name of this guy. I gave him the name. Military police went to Lanet in short order, picked up Nyangi and brought him to my office which was then at Kenya Bankers Co-operative House, opposite the 1998 bomb blast memorial. I am telling you when the man came, he stood before me in full jungle fatigues and so ramrod straight that I just couldn’t believe.

“He saluted me – with the military police behind him! I asked him, ‘Nyangi, today you can call me, Sir? And just last week you slapped me?’ Dr PB Odhiambo had assessed Sh17,000 compensation from that incident. The guy had to pay the money, otherwise he was going to lose his job. I am telling you this to show you that nobody who ever touched me and who I could identify ever got away with it.”

But of course, Clement Gachanja did. Not that the one-time chairman of the Kenya Football Federation ever assaulted GMT. What he only did was to try and teach him a thing or two about how to become a real, blood and bones Kenyan. GMT had seen many of his colleagues become Fifa referees as he cooled his heels at the altar of ethics and morality.

He always passed the Cooper Test, today called the Physical Endurance Test (PET), in which Fifa referee candidates did 2,700 metres in 12 minutes, but other people always made the list. GMT was then a senior officer at Wellcome Kenya, later Coopers, and he had given Gachanja’s Benham Holdings clearing and forwarding firm a lot of business.

When Gachanja became KFF chief, he told GMT, “Mr Ottieno, now that I have become chairman, I want to make you a Fifa referee.” GMT says he told him, “thank you very much, Mr Chairman, but I want to tell you one thing: you cannot make me a Fifa referee! You can only give me an opportunity to become one. All these years, I have matured into becoming a Fifa referee but I have not become because of certain things I hear take place.

“I don’t want to be given FIFA level of officiating on a silver platter. I want to get it on my own merit and be very proud of it. Gachanja told me, ‘Mr Ottieno, I want to tell you this, in Kenya there are certain things that you cannot get on merit. And you are going to regret this decision.’ I told him, ‘no, I am not going to regret it.’ We parted like that and I am happy that I never got to regret anything.”