Gor Mahia bus auction saga a wake-up call to the club

Our players have just been thrown under the bus. Now, dear reader, wear your most forlorn face and repeat this after me in the gravest voice you can muster:

“Our players have been thrown under the bus.”

As I am writing this, Gor Mahia Football Club does not have a bus. What this means is that our players will have to scramble for matatus going to train and the club officials will have to dig deeper into the coffers to hire transport to take the players to the march venues.

Because every decision at our beloved club is a par for the course, the whole saga is not clear.

There is a group that holds it that a former player Wellington Ochieng’ went to court over salary arrears owed by the club and got a favourable ruling that allowed him to send auctioneers to attach the bus for sale.

Another group says that the bus is being auctioned after an agreement between the former player and the club management to settle the outstanding payments.

I have largely followed the debate on social media and opinion is as divided as the number of people offering it.

Former club Organising Secretary and a fierce critic of the current office holders Judith Nyangi put a Facebook post in which she supported Ochieng’ and his action against the club.

According to the former official-turned-politician (she vied for an MCA position in the last general elections), Ochieng’s action should be a wake-up call to all those in charge at the club to shape up or shape out.

This seemed to have opened a can of worms with some fans supporting Nyangi and others accusing her of double standards.

According to those baying for Nyangi’s blood, most of the claims by the former players on salary arrears took place when she was a member of the “Office” and, therefore, cannot stand on self-declared higher moral ground to attack her former colleagues in the club’s management.

However, there is one important allegation by Nyangi that seems being swept under the carpet— that there is a well-connected cartel operating in Gor Mahia which offloads onto the club players with no visible talent.

Once this cartel identifies a player—in most cases foreigners— the club is forced to pay a king’s ransom in signing fees, a good percentage which end up in the cartel’s pockets.

These journeymen in the name of players spend their time warming the bench and when they are axed for non-performance run to the courts demanding payments. We have seen it happen in the past, happening now and if nothing is done, will continue happening in the future.

In my own observation, I have seen that such claims shoot up whenever a sponsor comes on board and go quiet when the club is struggling.

This latest brouhaha is of course coming hot on the heels of the new sponsorship deal signed with betting giants SportPesa.

With all due respect, I think it is time firms like SportPesa took more than a passing interest in how the monies they pump into our so-called community clubs are used.

I believe Ronald Karauri the SportPesa CEO is a man with a refined sense of business and he should be able to follow up where his money goes.

Maybe the good man will not want to be seen as having an altercation with Gor Mahia and its band of passionate followers.

But one thing I can assure the honourable Member of Parliament of Kasarani is that there are committed K’Ogalo fans who will read his interest in the club’s finances with the same fidelity his fellow aviators read the “Notice to Airmen” (NOTAM) alerts issued by flying authorities.

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