Top football league limps on after years of tinkering and meddling

Experts say that if you want an explanation for the state of a country’s national team, you will find all the answers you need by analysing that country’s top league. And in Kenya, the national football league tells a sorry tale. 

Tanzanian digital satellite service provider Azam TV headquartered in Dar es Salaam, and Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) are the leagues’ broadcast partners. The deal between FKF and Azam is for seven years and is worth $9.1 million (Sh1.2 billion as per current exchange rate). It was unveiled on August 31 last year, with Azam TV acquiring exclusive broadcast rights for the competition. FKF is yet to make public how much each club will get from the deal. 

Through the government, KBC agreed to be the leagues’ free-to-air broadcast partner. The seven-year deal between KBC and FKF worth Sh1.6 billion was unveiled on November 30 last year. During the launch, Cabinet Secretary for Information Communication and Technology Eliud Owalo announced that the Sh240 million a year deal will see each club get Sh10 million a season.

However, the league has no title sponsor, meaning that there is no prize money for the champions. Most clubs also struggle to stay afloat, and to pay their players and technical staff. Due to persistent financial problems, some clubs that were once powerhouses in the top league have since closed shop and faded into oblivion. They include Western Stima, Sony Sugar, Thika United and Chemelil Sugar. 

Supplementary tournaments that were previously organised to boost competition and nurture young talent, such as the Top Eight tournament and the Under-19 tournament, have never been held for close to a decade. 

Teams like Tusker and Gor Mahia, perennial winners of the league title, were once regular participants at continental club competitions, but this no longer happens, and the few times Kenyan clubs have appeared in continental competitions, they have returned dissatisfying performances. 

Read: Matiba and Omino’s watch: Birth of KFF, ensuing optimism and rise of local game

In terms of popularity, Gor Mahia and AFC leopards remain the most widely followed and supported, although stadium attendance has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, sparked by the 2017 exit of broadcast sponsors SuperSport, and lack of adequate marketing efforts by the current league organisers, Football Kenya Federation. 

In 2017, 11 months after Nick Mwendwa took over as president of Football Kenya Federation, the national league was run by a private entity known as the Kenyan Premier League Limited. This company was led by Jack Oguda as its Chief executive Officer, and featured 16 teams. More importantly, the league had three sponsors. There was a title sponsor, SportPesa, who were injecting Sh450 million into the league, having signed a four-and-a-half-year deal with KPL Limited immediately after the initial title sponsorship with Tusker (East Africa Breweries Limited) elapsed in August 2015. 

The league organisers were also in partnership with South African broadcaster SuperSport. Although the two partners declined to reveal the financial details of the contract, it was rumoured to be worth about Sh300 million a year, and involved live broadcast of at least three league matches every week.

The broadcasters also had three weekly magazine shows that further popularised the league both in Kenya and across the continent. Umbro were the official kit sponsors, having signed a Sh4 million three-year deal with KPL in 2011 to provide balls for use during the season, as well as kits for the 64 referees officiating matches. 

The presence of a title, broadcast and kit sponsor served to elevate the league’s profile, and expanded it’s visibility. It is during this time that players such as Michael Olunga found their wings and took up lucrative deals abroad. Also, because of this visibility, the Kenyan Premier League attracted many high quality foreigners from countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Congo who brought diversity and created more competition in the league.

Aside from players, clubs and coaches, there was also quite a bit of money circulating within local football circles, as SuperSport employed hundreds of Kenyans as match analysts, commentators, journalists, producers, groundsmen, and rig and camera operators. The Kenyan league seemed destined for greatness

Supersport, SportPesa pull out 

Then on January 26, 2017, a year after Mwendwa assumed FKF presidency, the league was expanded to 18 teams up from 16, and the federation took over the full running of the league after shoving aside Jack Oguda’s KPL Ltd. 

This deal, although vehemently opposed in court by KPL Ltd, was mediated by the Sports Disputes Tribunal led by John Ohaga backed by Fifa who insisted that football matters should not be adjudicated in courts of law. In the new deal, FKF had their way as they would now be involved in all commercial contracts involving the clubs, and in the appointment of referees. 

As part of the compromise, FKF agreed to pay Sh36 million every year to cater for the two additional teams, and to grant all suspended football officials, including Dan Shikanda, Hussein Terry and Sammy Sholei, amnesty without reservations. The league was then renamed FKF Premier League (FKF-PL), and KPL was allowed to continue running it, but with limited powers. The results were immediate and disastrous. In April 7, 2017, about three months after the federation took over the league management, SuperSport quit the local scene with two years still left in their contract, citing breach of contract. 

“You warranted us contractually that the KPL is the only body recognised by Fifa to run, administer and be responsible for the administration of professional club football in Kenya….You are accordingly in breach of our license agreement and we must unfortunately herewith terminate our contractual relationship,” Philip Seleke, SuperSport’s legal advisor at the time, wrote. 

In 2018, SportPesa terminated its contract with FKF-PL following a significant increase in taxes on betting firms, leaving the league without a broadcast nor title sponsor.

SportPesa had facilitated home and away friendly matches between league winners Gor Mahia and English Premier League sides Hull City and Everton, who played on Kenyan soil for the first time in history. This was all in a bid to market the league. Fans all over the country were treated to the rare opportunity of seeing EPL stars at close proximity at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

FKF later signed short-term broadcast and title sponsorship deals with StarTimes and BetKing respectively, but these deals were nowhere near as lucrative as the previous one, and lasted only about a season each. 

Currently, the league matches are highly inaccessible, and stadium attendance, even for big matches like the once famed Nairobi derby involving Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards, is worryingly low. 

Clubs continue to struggle to pay their players, and often there is no prize money to play for. League awards, which KPL organised annually to reward outstanding players, coaches and referees, died and FKF-PL has not organised them for more than half a decade. 

Incidents of match fixing have also increased over the years. In January last year, the federation sanctioned 14 players and two coaches over fixing allegations.

[email protected]