Harambee Stars still ‘stuck’ at Mvuli Hotel
The national football team is still putting up at Mvuli Hotel in Nairobi West despite a request by the team’s technical bench to move away from this facility, Nairobi News can confirm.
Harambee Stars are preparing for a 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifying match against Mauritius and are based at the hotel located in a city neigbourhood infamous for a vibrant night life, alcohol and drug abuse.
Some members of the national team squad have been accused of indiscipline that was partly blamed for Stars’ loss at home to Zambia in a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match early last month.
“I visited the hotel a day before we played Zambia and the first thing I noticed is that it isn’t an ideal place for a national team to set up camp,” the team’s technical director Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee said during a recent interview with SuperSport.
Head coach Bobby Williamson also confirmed that a number of senior players had been dropped from his squad owing to discipline concerns.
WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS
Nairobi News, however understand that the team’s relocation to the Government hostels at Kasarani may not have been possible owing to the Safaricom Sevens rugby tournament that is taking place there this weekend.
Football Kenya Federation also has a long standing debt at the facility, a factor that perhaps is not lost on Sports Kenya, who manage the institution.
Kenya is set to play Mauritius in the preliminary phase of the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers next week on Wednesday (October 07) away in Port Louis with the return leg slated for Nairobi four days later.
Meanwhile, the team will depart for Mauritius on Sunday at midday but without all its foreign based players save for Azam striker Allan Wanga.
The Tanzania-based player linked up with the team on Friday afternoon. FKF CEO Micheal Esakwa confirmed that the rest of the foreign legion will fly directly from their respective bases to Port Louis.