In a time of gloom and doom, one KPL team a boon to its players
What you need to know:
- Such great things are not expected to happen in Kenya. When they do come to pass we are left speechless. It is too good to be true and unlike some cement company in Athi River pretending to engage in philanthropy and donating millions oxygen tanks to fight the virus while leaving the employees hungry, Don has set a great example.
- All clubs must try to be human with the players at this trying moment. Even these sad and trying times will end and we will need the boys again. Kudos to Wazito FC.
After three weeks of a suspended Kenyan Premier League, the KPL awoke from its slumber, cleared it throat of the thick phlegm and decided to give an official statement on the suspension of the league.
It took more than 21 days for that body to give the way forward “officially”. That is KPL for you dear reader, so please just get used to it.
Last Tuesday, a statement from the league confirmed that KPL will remain suspended due to the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic.
The league CEO Jack Oguda told us everything we already know except the fate of the players which was our main worries.
On the players’ contracts, he said and we quote: ‘Individual clubs will discuss the situation with their players on the way forward during the interim period that the current league is suspended.”
In one fell swoop, he had solved the main problem by throwing the players back to their clubs.
We are sure that there are many football players at the Premier League level who have forgotten when they last received a paycheque. They have become almost beggars and hunted by landlords from every angle.
Those that have the “misfortune” of having wives and children are in a cauldron hotter than hell.
The only safe ones are those kept men -- but they too must entertain their mistresses the best they can so that they are not thrown out into the curfew among the sadistic Kenya police officers who may maim them.
These are no jokes, they are scary facts that we have established after interviewing many players.
Now, the KPL offers them no other direction but to run back to the same club officials who are in hibernation shielding themselves from responsibilities while hiding behind the Corona veil.
It is in this regard that we must congratulate Wazito FC management for their care and plans for their employees. The club’s president Ricardo “Don” Badoer has revealed that Wazito players will not be taking a pay cut during the Covid-19 pandemic. Period.
The club president announced last week that he will not be asking any of his staff in Kenya to take a pay cut. Don revealed he will instead pay full salaries, admitting he had to be considerate of the employees who have many dependents.
“My thinking is that when you have people working for you, you cannot decide not to pay them because there is a virus in the world, it would be very unfair for me to pull such a move. They have families, they need to put food on the table and as such, I have to consider their welfare too,”
Such great things are not expected to happen in Kenya. When they do come to pass we are left speechless. It is too good to be true and unlike some cement company in Athi River pretending to engage in philanthropy and donating millions oxygen tanks to fight the virus while leaving the employees hungry, Don has set a great example.
All clubs must try to be human with the players at this trying moment. Even these sad and trying times will end and we will need the boys again. Kudos to Wazito FC.
