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WHY KENYA NEEDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL STADIUM FAST

We were all shocked when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) banned Kasarani Stadium late last year from hosting international games as the stadium "lacked several Caf criteria and requirements in order to properly host international senior competitions.." Before we could even recovered from the shock, FIFA followed suit and banned the country - for different reasons - from participating in any international games. It must have come as a shock to many, but we should have seen all these coming. Kenyan football has flirted with danger for so long and it has finally caught up with us.

Kenya's football administration has been nothing but a joke recently. Our elite, top tier league is non-televised, and until recently, lacked a sponsor. Think about that for a second. Think about it again. Nigerian Premier League, South African Premier Soccer League, the Ethiopian League and even Zambian Premier League is beamed all over the continent for fans to enjoy. Even the third tier league in England is broadcasted all over the world yet The Kenyan "Premier" League cannot be shown even on our own televisions! What are these guys smoking? This is madness, really. Football cannot attract corporate sponsorships or funding if it's not broadcasted. Enterprises put money into the game only because of the visibility they get in return. By playing our football in total media blackout, we're effectively standing in the way of only the most important revenue stream for any league in the world. Without coverage, there can never be corporate sponsorship and without corporate sponsorship, the game suffers. That's the primary reason why our football has taken a huge step backwards. The Tanzanian apex football league (Ligi Kuu Bara) and the Ugandan Premier League are now ranked above ours. Think about that for a second or two. In our region today, we're only better than our war-plagued neighbours. Our position on the FIFA ranking has plummeted to historic lows, Our football clubs, which were once the region's powerhouses, are the punching bags of our neighbours and our top league's prize money is not better than Tanzania's man of the Match awards. Our footballing talent is not exposed to international markets, clubs struggle to stay afloat and have resorted to terminating players' contracts just to make ends meet. At the core of all these is lack of broadcasting and corporate sponsorship.

Lack of sporting facilities further exacerbates the problem. As we speak, Kenya doesn't have even one stadium fit to host international football games. This is a big insult to the country that boasts the biggest economy in East and Central African Region. Tanzania completed the construction of the 60,000-seater Benjamin Mkapa stadium in 2007. Rwanda is constructing stadiums for fun. Cameroon built a new 60,000-seater capacity Olembe Stadium just for AFCON 2021 and refurbished about 4 others for the tournament. Nigeria recently commissioned a 61,000-seater Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja. Kenya's economy is far much better than most of these countries yet we, on the other hand, have constructed only 9 "cowshed-style stadiums" across the country with corrugated iron-sheets and steel beems, non of which is fit to host even local league games. We would be better off with one international stadium instead of 20 of these low quality arenas.

Now, the 35 year old stadium we were counting on (Moi International Sports Center, Kasarani) has been banned and we're acting surprised. Kenyans deserve better. We should not allow ourselves to be the only country in East Africa without a CAF accredited facility fit to host international football games!


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