Published on December 16, 2024 by Kariuki Mwangi
Last Updated on 2 years by Kariuki Mwangi
The Kenyan national under 15 years boys and girls football teams shamefully failed to play the Africa cup qualifiers due to lack of finances as Kenya is the only East African country that failed to see teams to the CAF African schools football championships CECAFA region competition in Uganda.
The under 15 teams ,who would join the under 20 team in qualifying for continental competition in Kenya’s continued efforts at developing youth football.
In a stack contrast, the Kenyan government reportedly failed to fund the teams to travel for the qualifiers but was at hand to fund the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) elections at which “government project” Hussein Mohammed won the FKF presidency.
Reports have been revealed that the ministry of sports bankrolled Hussein’s camp to the tune of Ksh 50 million in delegates bribery and even on the elections day, money was splashed to ensure Hussein was elected but the government could not finance the schools competition teams, who only required less than half the amount to do national duty internationally.
“We have information that the Sports CS sent over 50 million shillings for Hussein’s campaign but the same government could not afford to finance the under 15 teams,” a source aware of the intrigues intimated to us.
The source, who spoke on a point of anonymity confirmed that even the national 17 currently playing in Uganda was poorly funded while the under 20 team which has already secured qualifications to the 2025 CAF under 20 AFCON is yet to be given the rewards that the ministry promised then when they sealed qualification alongside Tanzania by emerging second in the CECAFA AF con qualifiers held in Tanzania.
Funding delegates to vote for the Hussein Mohammed presidency appeared a more urgent priority as opposed to funding the under 15 teams at a time when youth football has been seen to be on the rise in Kenya as evidenced by the recent heroics of the women under 17 team which made history by playing in the FIFA under 17 world cup in Dominican republic.
In the development, Kenya ended up as the only country without a representation in the competition which has
Uganda, Tanzania, Somali, Burundi and Rwanda in the boys category as well as Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda in the girls category.
