An open letter to KFF Caretaker Commttiee and Harambee Stars Management Board

Dear KFF Caretaker Committee & HSMB, Since your appointment, am sure you have received a steady flow of unsolicited advice from all sorts of people and institutions on how best you should chart the way into football’s promised world. I am not sure how many kawaida fans have approached you, but if you are agreeable, allow me, by way of an open letter, to represent this silent majority that may just hold the key to your success and glory. By way of introduction, I am one of the 30-million kawaida citizens who may not make to sit on the same table with eminent persons such as you. I am just a Kenyan football fan, sadly forced to live on the fringes of the “beautiful game” by inept sports’ administrators with little regard of my small place in the bigger picture called Kenyan Football. Even as I welcomed your appointment with both anticipation as well as a sense of déjà vu, bearing in mind that similar attempts have been made in the past and all came to a cropper, but praying that this recent attempt will finally get it right; I am aware that at a personal and national level, time is running out both literally and symbolically. Running out for both Kenyan football as well as for all the other mere shabikis like me. I mean we cannot sit around waiting for selfish officialdom to sort things out forever. A handful for sports administrators, sports journalists, retired referees; former football players, sponsors and busybodies have hogged all the football limelight to the detriment of the real owners of the game. A personal testimony may be appropriate here to illustrate to you my dreams, wishes, and aspirations as far as football is concerned. Let me define my football to you. I am not an active player; I was never a serious player. But I am a stakeholder though. I am a fan. A kawaida shabiki. Allow me then to get off my chest what I consider to be your obligations to me. I love the electrifying atmosphere that a full stadium generates. I recall with nostalgia the All African Games final between Kenya and Egypt way back in 1987. I can re-live the sights, sounds and smells that rent the air on Thika Road that night. Like many of the 80,000 other Kenyans in the stadium that night, I was on a high for weeks! I have since gone on to experience a handful of similar memorable moments watching cricket, hockey and athletics. It is an experience worth spending money and time in pursuit of. Fill the stadiums for me. Fill the stadiums with me. I love football for its entertainment and recreational value. I would love to share the experience of a packed stadium with my seven-year-old son. His only “stadium” experience is limited to the paltry 5,000 annual rugby crowd during the Safari Sevens tournament. Who would not want that experience every other weekend? It’s your duty to facilitate that. In view of the chaos and disorder that has taken place in our football stadiums, I would be an idiot to risk my life for “mere football”. You are duty bound to ensure that every fan that walks through the stiles of any venue you have hired will leave in one piece. The fan need not be well behaved. It is your duty to prepare for any eventuality. If you must hire a security guard or policeman for each fan, so be it! Assure me of my security. Along with that, it is your duty to ensure that arrangements are made for every one of the fans to get to the venue and back home with minimal inconvenience. How do you dream of filling a stadium with 40,000 people, but don’t care how they get there or leave. However much I love football, I don’t want to get home at 11.00 pm from a game that ended at 6.00pm. Transport logistics are a part of the package. Sports’ marketing has elevated football earnings to levels un-imagined a few decades ago. Even in a ramshackle football economy like ours, you see money made through pay TV and merchandising of both genuine and counterfeit football related goods and services. Unfortunately this business is not big enough to create substantial jobs and most of the income is repatriated to South Africa, Taiwan, China or UK. With my kadogo disposable income of two thousand shillings, I and another 300,000 Kenyans could support a 600 million shillings monthly spend on football. Local football first and later on foreign football. Find ways of getting my disposable income. I have a friend who regales me with stories of his erstwhile fanatic support for AFC Leopards. He watched every single game they played in the country, traveled to out of town match venues on a shoe string budget, and slept in buses just to be there at kick off and final whistle. His life was centered on the team. He was a member of a community. The AFC community. The twist in his story is that he was not drawn from the usual bastion of AFC supporters as would be expected. He is not even from a very football-fluent community. His experience and that of tens of thousands of other Kenyans, tells me that tribalizing football is retrogressive and has no place in today’s sports arena. Lets it be an accident of proximity, but don’t encourage Maasais, Kambas, Rendilles, Pokots, Taitas, etc to come up with a tribal team for the sake of it. Football is a universal language and does not need to be dressed in tribal garb. Keep politicians and their balkanizing tendencies out of football. The Kenyan stocks market has gone through a metamorphosis that has re-drawn the realities of finance mobilization. As a country we are now confident about our ability and response to investment opportunities. Football can be managed as a business and attract both the capital and human resources that would ensure success. We all understand football as a product and if you ask me, I know many fans that would invest in a business they understand. I don’t like the impression created that Kenyan sports should be a perennial receiver of other people’s gratitude. Sports can make profits. Football can be a profitable business. Incubate such teams that can be an example to others. In ten years every team in the National 1st, 2nd and 3rd division leagues, provincial and district leagues should all run as viable business. Work on assuring the investor’s confidence. You won’t believe it but I know the finer details and the small print of Alberto Pereira’s contract with the South African FA. I know that they are paying him US $10 million to be their head coach. I am also privy to the pay package for England’s Mc Laren, or even Real Madrid’s Beckham or Arsenal’s Wenger. I know their every professional move. Buzz is generated by personal details of football stars all over the world. You may not think such issues concern you and your serious mandate to get Kenyan football on her feet again, but the success of everything you want achieved is hinged on how you manage information. Information is generated so as to keep the masses interested. It is a soap opera with intertwined story lines. It is a modern gladiator’s ring from which the spectator wants to see every gory detail on display! Within bounds of decency, I want all the information there is to know. Keep me informed to keep me interested. Of course the credibility and integrity of the people running the show is as important as the show itself. So is the image and reputation of the institution you wish to start or revive. Remember I want to associate with people and institutions that I can believe in. A food business with the world’s best recipes cannot go far if it does not open at meal times. Keep the promises of a regular schedule and stick to the rules that govern such schedules. Keep the promises you make to me. Infrastructure both physical and institutional is very important. Let’s start with only five secure stadiums or even a 1st Division league of only 10 teams if that is the entire infrastructure that our system can support. Let us not stretch the definition of a stadium to placate regional egos. If your town does not have a stadium fitting the general description, then your home matches can be at a neutral venue. Let us think viability. Away from my personal musings and wishes, I know that football is many things to many people. I recognize that it is a source of recreation to the youth with potential to keeping the idle away from crime and other anti-social behavior. Football also offers a career path for youth from poor backgrounds. A national league supported by provincial, district, locational, estate leagues and schools can be a viable industry employing thousands. To the business sector, the game is a channel for advertisers to reach their markets as well as offering an opportunity to investors wishing to inject capital in start-up or profitable teams. For large corporations, the development and sustenance of football infrastructure offers a social investment channel. For the masses, the entertainment we can derive from football is well known as well as social glue to keep citizens of diverse backgrounds cohesive via interest or positive inter-team rivalry. A successful football structure will take a place of pride on the economic front with positive impact on various businesses like transport, infrastructure, sports clothes and gear, TV productions, security and others. Whatever you do, remember that only about a thousand people believe that football was invented to enrich and deliver them to potential voters. The other million or so Kenyans know and treat the game with respect and are watching to see if you will join the one thousand scavengers who will sink their fangs into the carcass of a dead KFF hoping to draw some blood money or you will be the saviours who nurture our beloved game back into life for the benefit of many millions of Kenyans who truly love football. If only you can be able to see football beyond the 8,20 or whatever point jargon contained in your appointment letter. If you can see your appointment from a shabiki’s perspective, you may just distinguish yourself from all the previous boards and committees that were here before you. That is not too hard to do. The kawaida shabiki is watching you. Yours Tekelea the fan