Poor state of pitches killing football

Just ask who or what is Kenyan football’s biggest enemy, and it would surely be a toss-up between wrangling factions and poor pitches.

Kenya is enduring a severe lack of playable fields and overuse of the remaining grounds due to the closure of Kasarani and Nyayo National Stadium for renovations.

The two venues have remained unavailable for the last four months and this has pushed football heads to resort to a string of site switches and makeshift accommodations just to keep league and national assignments going.

Double headers have also been increased, thereby resulting in overuse of the remaining pitches which are themselves in dire need of renovations.

The current Jubilee Government’s unfulfilled promise to construct five stadia to facilitate the improvement of sports five years ago is something that continues to irk local sports enthusiasts.

It is, therefore, sad, nay, depressing, when top flight league teams are forced to play in treacherous fields as if oblivious of the inherent risks involved in having top-level, highly-paid talent slogging it out in the mud.

Although muted at this point, the concerns of SportPesa Premier League coaches, with regard to the poor playing surfaces available, is slowly growing into a chorus, and it wouldn’t be a mistake of they would refuse to send their players onto grounds such as Thika.

This is because fields like Thika — or together all the other grounds currently in use — are bad for the quality of the game and the health of its players.

More importantly, these grounds are a serious hindrance to the quality of football played in the top-flight, and a disturbing sight for photojournalists struggling to capture filed action during such games.

To the outside world, the pretense of pitches on which the SPL is played are an elaborate indication of our deficiencies in as far as sports infrastructure is concerned.