Whatever Caf decides, Chan circus must end
What you need to know:
- The Confederation of African Football (Caf) officials were in the country on a tight schedule to inspect Kenya’s facilities for the 2018 Africa Nations Championships (Chan).
- They were taken to all the stadiums expected to host the January matches — MISC Kasarani, Nyayo National Stadium, Moi Kinoru Stadium in Meru and Eldoret’s Kipchoge Keino Stadium.
- Somehow, the Machakos stadium was not inspected for reasons known best to the inspectors and perhaps Football Kenya Federation too.
The Confederation of African Football (Caf) officials were in the country on a tight schedule to inspect Kenya’s facilities for the 2018 Africa Nations Championships (Chan).
They were taken to all the stadiums expected to host the January matches — MISC Kasarani, Nyayo National Stadium, Moi Kinoru Stadium in Meru and Eldoret’s Kipchoge Keino Stadium.
Somehow, the Machakos stadium was not inspected for reasons known best to the inspectors and perhaps Football Kenya Federation too.
We watched with a somewhat sinking feeling as the inspectors took their notes while politely asking some questions that were being answered inaudibly and at length by Kenyan officials.
One wishes we could peek into their notes and get a glimpse of what they really were thinking about us.
To say the truth, of the stadiums mentioned, only MISC Kasarani, which hosted the IAAF World Under-18 Championships in July meets the hosting requirements!
The rest are a shame even to the adults walking around the Caf officials with wide smiles that betrayed their restlessness. This time round, it was a whirlwind tour of the venues and there was no time to take them to the Nairobi National Park to adopt some cheetah chimpanzee or godknowswhatelse!
We had to show them the real things on the ground and that to us was gehannum! At the dug-up pitch at the never-ending, ever-being-refurbished Kipchoge Keino Stadium in Eldoret, people are working with the most rudimentary tools like jembes, et al.
Trenches are filled with foul water at Nyayo National Stadium and the horror that is Kinoru... it was indeed an interesting tour.
All the time, our visitors were taking notes — some even doing it in Arabic — and asking those simple embarrassing questions. Our officials were looking important and took the opportunity to assure us that all was well.
The verdict is not yet out but we must be ready for anything now. Steel our nerves and hope for the best while expecting the worst. That way, when the cudgel falls ,we shall not feel much bitterness, rave and rant against our big men. We shall have cushioned all those feelings.
The final decision will now be taken at the next Caf’s executive committee meeting in Accra this Saturday.
We wish we could sleep sans fear but that is not the case. We wait with crossed fingers and hope that we shall keep the hosting rights. We have talked about this small thing for such a long time till boredom creeps in whenever we revisit the matter.
We shall not give up until it is over and we shall chide the authorities as much as we can. This should be the last thing we ever bid for if it fails to take place here! We shall ask that whoever tries to bid for hosting rights for our country be jailed for shaming us!
