Did Mwendwa shortchange local coaches on Harambee Stars job?
Football Kenya Federation President Nick Mwendwa is on the spotlight for reportedly shortchanging local “elite” coaches.
Nairobi News understands Mwendwa had a pre-election deal with a group of coaches ahead of the February 10 elections.
The coaches were to mobilise votes for him and in return, the youthful aspirant was to hand this group the Harambee Stars coaching role.
The tacticians honoured their part of this Memorandum of Understanding, but Mwendwa reportedly didn’t, instead appointing a relatively inexperienced Stanley Okumbi for the job.
The elite coaches are a group of tacticians currently working in the Kenyan Premier League.
FEEL SHORTCHANGED
“The elite coaches are very angry by the way. I have talked to a few of them and though they cant show it, they feel shortchanged,” Boniface Ambani, a former Kenya international told Nairobi News in an interview on Monday.
After Stars lost to Guinea Bissau, Coach Okumbi reportedly blamed this group of elite coaches for instigating the crowd trouble witnessed.
“I know which coaches are unhappy with my appointment but I wont name them. This isn’t the important part. What I am concentrating on at the moment is to turn around the results of this team in the forthcoming assignments,” Okumbi said on Monday.
CROWD TROUBLE
Okumbi is on the spot for some of the decisions he made during Sunday’s match, which was marred by incidents of crowd trouble.
Among these decisions was to withdraw two defenders, James Situma and Brian Mandela, during the game and replace them with attackers, while deploying midfielders Anthony Akumu and Johanna Omollo to operate in unfamailiar defensive positions.
This decision evidently left the team exposed to the nimble footed Guinean attackers, a move that eventually led to the only goal Stars conceded.
