Everything needs to be in place, a bus too, for Gor to win games
Gor Mahia's Austin Odhiambo celebrates his goal with teammates John Ochieng and Benson Omalla (left) during their Football Kenya Federation Premier League match against Kariobangi Sharks at Kasarani Stadium on April 9, 2023.
What you need to know:
- Thus the small matter of players not having a reliable means of transport will make him lose nary a wink when spread on his lawyerly size bed at night.
- I want to put it to the good man that our players deserve all the structures in place to get them into good shape to win us matches. If Abraham Maslow was still around with us, I am sure he would have listed a team bus as one of the basic needs of professional sportspeople.
The statement would have been hilarious were it not for the gravity of the situation. At first I thought I was reading wrong and that the publication was making a mistake.
But then I pinched myself to the stark reminder that the news article was appearing in the hallowed pages of the Sunday Nation newspaper and must have passed the rigours of checks and counterchecks.
This means the story was as “kosher” as a meal taken by a Jew in the Pesach (Passover) period. To put it mildly, I was flabbergasted and simply gutted by what I read.
In the words of Gor Mahia vice-chairman Francis Wasuna, the weighty matter of K’Ogalo’s team bus falling under the auctioneer’s hammer was something he can only comment on during working days.
“I don’t know whether the bus has been auctioned or not but this is an issue which can be talked about on a working day,” the good lawyer was quoted stating.
To give a little context, the bus was impounded last month after a former player, Wellington Ochieng’, who played for K’Ogalo between 2016 and 2017 before moving to Tusker, sought redress over unpaid salaries and allowances amounting to some Sh1.7 million.
Some time last week, stories started circulating especially on social media to the effect that the bus had actually been sold. It was against this milieu that the reporter who filed the story sought Wasuna’s comments on the matter.
I want to call out Wasuna for what he is— an ivory tower living club official who behaves like running Gor Mahia is a favour he is extending— and not an honour he has been accorded. Working on week days can apply to his law firm or wherever the good man is practising the trade of law.
Wasuna and those in charge of Gor Mahia must be told that theirs is a calling like that of a doctor or a clergyman. There is no weekday or weekend and it is a 24 hour thing. For crying out loud, Gor Mahia is a football club and weekends are usually the busiest times for such enterprises.
In other words, if there is a critical time when the services of those running the club are needed then it is at the weekend. We also expect those running our beloved club’s affairs to be having facts and figures on their fingers and they must be ready to rattle such off whenever asked.
I have no problem with Wasuna running his law practice on weekdays or Christmas holidays whichever he deems fit. But it is when it comes to Gor Mahia that I draw the line.
Since the bus was impounded, our players have been left to ride in public service vehicles when going for training and hiring of the same to take them to honour fixtures.
I am assuming that as a lawyer in this big city of ours, Wasuna is used to using a well maintained vehicle to get to his lawyerly and other destinations and he might be far removed to know the chaotic nature of having to fight for space in matatus for the players going to train.
Thus the small matter of players not having a reliable means of transport will make him lose nary a wink when spread on his lawyerly size bed at night.
I want to put it to the good man that our players deserve all the structures in place to get them into good shape to win us matches. If Abraham Maslow was still around with us, I am sure he would have listed a team bus as one of the basic needs of professional sportspeople.
