Match fixing: Football club owner wants betting banned after his player is busted
Kakamega Homeboyz owner Cleophas Shimanyula has called on the government to ban sports betting in Kenya.
The businessman spoke to Nairobi News on Wednesday, days after his club’s sacked coach and a player were linked to receiving cash payments from the owner of a betting firm in order to fix matches.
His club is tenth in the Kenyan Premier League standings after playing 10 matches.
“Just like (Uganda President Yoweri) Museveni has done, I want to humbly ask our government to ban betting in the country. This is a time bomb, it will finish our youth and investments,” said Shimanyula.
Uganda recently banned the registration of new fully owned betting companies, with Museveni also announcing the old firms will not have their licences renewed.
It is for this reason that we are banning registration of new fully-owned foreign betting companies while the old ones will not have their licences renewed. All they do is accumulate money from Ugandans then ship it out of the country.
— Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) January 24, 2019
Football authorities have vowed to slap ex-Kakamega Homeboyz coach Paul Nkata, his assistant Hamza Kalani and player George Mandela with lifetime bans of found guilty of fixing matches.
“I have invested Sh8 million in this team over the past year alone and now I am staring at the possibility of sacking eight employees because of match-fixing and betting. It is a huge loss.”
The trio has been accused by Shimanyula of receiving cash to influence the outcome of top-flight matches pitting Homeboyz against Sony Sugar and Mathare United.