A small debt settled in memory of Andrew Jennings

Andrew Jennings, the internationally acclaimed investigative journalist, must be smiling in his grave. Why? The lifetime works of this uncompromising British reporter, who once said that it matters when bad men take control of the people’s sport and use it for their own personal ends, are nearing fruition.

Jennings, who died on January 8, 2022 at the age of 78, pursued the bad guys for the better part of his illustrious career with a relentless resolve to expose and have them brought to book.
This is how he described himself in his blockbuster of a novel, Foul! The Secret World of Fifa: Bribes, Vote-Rigging and Ticket Scandals: “When children ask me what it is I do exactly, I tell them I’ve made a life and a living out of chasing bad men.”

The book is a damning exposé of the grand corruption that had taken hold of and almost crippled football’s world governing body at the turn of the century under the watch of one Joseph "Sepp" Blatter.

In the book, Jennings uncovers the massive scale in which Blatter and his acolytes in Zurich abused their positions and misappropriated millions of dollars in their unquenchable thirst for power, more money and lucrative kick-backs.

What passes off for massive embezzlement of funds in this part of world would merely be a drop in the ocean in the book. And if you thought Kenyan sports administrators have mastered the art of self-preservation through manipulation of electoral processes, wait till you read about the invincible electoral machine that Blatter and his cronies built to keep themselves in power till kingdom come.

For that reason, Jennings must have been the one person that the Fifa mandarins hated the most. His brand of ‘annoying’ journalism earned him a lifetime ban from Fifa events and multiple lawsuit threats, which Fifa never followed through, anyway. It is even reported that Fifa attempted to prevent him from publishing his masterpiece of a book.

But the chickens eventually came home to roost in late 2015 when Blatter was hounded out office and handed a lengthy ban by Fifa. Sadly, in Jennings’ own words, investigative reporters don’t always live to see bad men get their comeuppance. For everything he did to expose the misdeeds of the Blatter administration, Jennings never lived to see the disgraced former world football boss convicted.

Yet, Jennings must be pretty pleased with himself in the hereafter, following the arraignment of Blatter and his partner in crime, ex-Uefa president Michel Platini, at the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona on Thursday. The two are facing charges of fraudulent and unlawful payment of 2m Swiss francs (Sh237.7 million) that was made by Blatter to Platini in 2011 under a “gentleman's agreement.’’

This is one case the world of football will keenly follow to see what eventually becomes of these two men.

Back to Jennings. At the end of his book, the writer graciously acknowledges some of the good fellows who helped him chase the bad guys. Among them, to my pleasant surprise, is my editor Elias Makori, whom he refers to as a “newspaperman”, and the one and only Bob Munro, who needs no introduction here.

It is that selfsame Munro, who way back in January, shortly after Jennings’ death, emailed me with a request to consider making Jennings the subject of my next column. Apparently, Munro and Jennings were old buddies. So to Munro, I consider this article a ‘debt’ settled, albeit five months later!

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