Why DBA Africa terminated its contract with Omanyala

Sports management company, DBA Africa, has revealed why it has severed ties with Africa’s fastest man Ferdinand Omanyala Omurwa on Monday.

Responding to Nation Sports' questions on why the company had announced ceasing association with the national record holder, DBA Africa Director, Storm Trentham, on Monday alluded to Omanyala failing to observe the agreement between the two sides.

“The core values of DBA Africa are hugely important and must be upheld by all involved within the company. Unfortunately if our athletes do not maintain our same values at all times, we are no longer able to work successfully together,” she said.

“As you can imagine, to terminate a contract when the athlete is in his prime and performing on the world stage, speaks volumes about how important we feel it is to protect our brand and the professional image we proudly share with the sporting world," she added.

She disclosed that the 25-year-old University of Nairobi student signed a two-year contract in February 2021 with DBA Africa. It had worked with him unofficially since December 2020.

“We facilitated all his expenses to travel around Africa to run his for Olympic qualifying times as well as financed other areas of his career,” said Trentham.

“That is as much as we would like to say on the matter. We wish him well with his career and can now continue to focus on all our other talented athletes and our academies.”

Omanyala said that he has not been working with DBA Africa since May because the  'management company is not registered by World Athletics;.

Omanyala donned DBA Africa-branded kits when he broke the national record, clocking 10.01 seconds in Nigeria in March and ran 10.06 in a race in South Africa in May.

He was invited to take part in Team Kenya Olympic trials and qualified with a time of 10.02. He improved his time to 10.01 during the preliminary round at the Tokyo Games on July 31.

He defeated his mentor Yohan Blake in semi-final stage when he set a new national record of 10.00, while finishing in third place behind American Fred Kerley and Canadian Andre De Grasse as he missed out the final narrowly in Tokyo.

Weeks later, Omanyala set a new national record of 9.86 in Austria before becoming the fastest man in Africa during the last leg of the 2021 World Continental Tour Gold, Kip Keino Classic at Kasarani Stadium where he ran 9.77 breaking the African record of 9.84 held by South African Akani Simbine.

Omanyala said that he has not been working with DBA Africa since May since “management company is not registered by World Athletics”.