Please help me fight match-fixing, cries Vihiga Bullets coach Owoko
That match fixing is widespread in Kenyan football is no longer a secret.
What you need to know:
- Vihiga was relegated from the top-flight league to the National Super League (NSL) last season, following a string of poor performances that was largely caused by the biting financial crisis that the club was grappling with.
“Haki mnisaidie, wameniharibia team (please help me, they have destroyed my team)."
That was the passionate appeal Vihiga Bullets coach George Owoko made to Nation Sport via a phone call after he Monday arrested an alleged match-fixing suspect.
On his second stint as the club’s coach after being re-appointed in August, his main mission is to lead the team to an immediate return to the Football Kenya Federation Premier League (FKF-PL).
Vihiga was relegated from the top-flight league to the National Super League (NSL) last season, following a string of poor performances that was largely caused by the biting financial crisis that the club was grappling with.
But the youthful tactician now fears that his efforts to guide the team to an immediate return to the FKF-PL might be hampered by match-fixing, which is rampant in Kenyan football.
He said that it was after his defender Gilbert Oloo told him that someone had approached him to help influence the outcome of their upcoming home match against Kisumu All Stars that they laid a trap.
Through the player, they convinced the suspect to visit their camp in Mumias Sugar Managerial Estate where they apprehended him.
In a video that has since gone viral, Owoko is seen confronting the suspect who was in a car. He single-handedly manages to pull him out of the car, before two other people join him in subduing the suspect .
“The player informed me that some people had called him asking him to mobilise his teammates to fix our next match,” said the coach.
"We lured the caller to our camp in Mumias Sugar managerial estate where we apprehended one of them who was driving their vehicle. His accomplice managed to escape.”
Nation Sport established that the other suspect who escaped was a coach of a local football team in Mumias. The suspect plus the car he was driving were taken to Booker Police Post.
In the deal, Vihiga were to concede three goals in the first half, including penalties. The players were to receive Sh50,000 each if the deal went through.
Speaking to Nation Sport on Tuesday, Mumias West Sub-County Police Commander Stephen Muoni said that the suspect, Hamis Waswa, was released on Monday on bond pending investigations.
“Since we had not completed the investigations, we released the suspect on bond. We are trying to consult and when done, we will advise accordingly,” said Muoni.
Owoko said this is not the first match-fixing case he is dealing with as several people have been approaching his players with promises of offering them huge sums of money if they accepted their requests to influence the outcome of matches.
“It is very disheartening that while we coaches are striving to build a team to win trophies, some people are working at making quick money from our efforts by using players to fix the matches. This is also wasting the career of these young players,” he said.
The lack of a law criminalising match-fixing in the country is behind the spike in match manipulation cases in the country.
In May, three match-fixing suspects - Russian Akhiad Kubiev, Ugandan Bernard Nabende and Kenyan Martin Mungawere - were released on a Sh200,000 fine each after they pleaded guilty to the vice.
