Whatever Harambee Stars’ Afcon plans are, we wish them all the best

Whenever information is hard to come by and those interested in it get anxious, a wide gap is left for some cheeky fellows to manufacture fake news. Such has been the case with Harambee stars voyage to the 2019 Afcon.

There is a lot of fake news doing rounds in the social media and it tires one to keep correcting them in WhatsApp and Facebook groups where they spread like bush fire.

Long before the seeding was done, long, long before the groups for the tournament were drawn, a piece was already doing rounds and Kenya was put in some crazy group which really concerned people.

Even as we write this piece, somebody has already announced the Harambee Stars squad for the continental competition! Well, Football Kenya Federation has already been forced to react and explain that the news is false and possibly malicious.

Let us ignore the fake reports and be patient enough to wait for the mainstream media to confirm these things.

Well, it has been a long while since we as a country were represented in the continental championship. The last time we were there was in 2004 and we did not perform well.

We only managed to beat Burkina Faso but the tie was no longer important since we had already lost the first two crucial matches. We however exited with our heads held high.

That is the reason why we are really looking forward to this. For some past weeks we have exhausted ourselves trying to get information about the preparations of the Stars for this competition.
We now are told that they will go to France and will play two friendly matches.

We believe FKF has set up matches against Gambia and Madagascar. We remember in December last year, the same Nick Mwendw (pictured) a told us that the stars would play Cote d’Ivoire. That never happened of course. We will not take this one again if it turns a cropper.

The president of FKF was quoted in the media saying that the national team will play against Madagascar and Gambia on June 7 and 15 respectively as they get ready for the continental showpiece.

He said: “We have finally secured two friendly matches, one against the Gambia and the other against Madagascar. The two matches are now confirmed and will be played in France,”

Now, that sounds too good for people like us to believe but we must take el president at his word and get some faith. We only hope that the preparations will be satisfactory and that the boys will arrive in Cairo on June 19 as scheduled and that they will get some direct flight and not go around the world like Gor Mahia did.

It has come at the right time just when our domestic league is nearing its end. We now can see the benefits of following the Fifa calendar. We wish the boys all the best.