Local coaches more successful in Kenyan club football than foreign ones, and that is a fact

Virtually all football followers in the country excoriated AFC Leopards management for inexplicably appointing Belgian coach Patrick Aussems to replace Kenyan Anthony Kimani last week.

Many aggrieved observers had beef with the fact that young Kimani had an excellent record with the former multiple champions and was seemingly destined to guide them to their 14th title in history. Why replace him?

Others brought up the long unresolved debate of who was better between a foreign and a local coach to handle a Kenyan Premier League club. Was AFC Leopards bumping off Kimani because he was a local coach in preference for a foreign one?

I have waited for the furore surrounding this decidedly, controversial appointment at the den to subside and the din of indignation from die-hard Kimani fans to die down before giving a very considered observation on performance of foreign coaches vis-à-vis their local counterparts in as far as winning the Kenyan championship is concerned.  

In the absence of official Football Kenya Federation records, I have personally gathered my data from “Daily Nation” past publications, and interpersonal interviews with journalists, former players and coaches.

The Kenyan Premier League was started in 1963, then referred to as the Kenya National Football League.

In total, 55 championships have been resolved over 58 years. I have not considered three seasons.

The league was scrapped in 1969 and 1971 after dissolution of the federations by the government, while the 2020 season was cancelled by Kenyan football boss Nick Mwendwa, who then unilaterally declared Gor Mahia winners.

Of the 55 titles decided, foreign coaches have won 21 compared to a whopping 35 for local coaches.

The first title winner incidentally was a foreigner, Ray Bachelor of England, who guided Nakuru All Stars to the inaugural Kenya National Football League crown in 1963.

But from then on until 1980 when Ugandan Robert Kiberu won with AFC Leopards, league champions were all local coaches save for one year,  Paul Odhiambo (Luo Union, 1964), Badi Said (Feisal FC, 1965), Joe Kagenge (Abaluhya, 1966), Elijah Lidonde (Abaluhya, 1967), Paul Odhiambo (Gor Mahia, 1968), Elijah Lidonde (Abaluhya, 1970), Charles Makunda (Kenya Breweries, 1972), Jonathan Niva (Abaluyha, 1973), Allan Thigo (Gor Mahia, 1974, 1976, 1979), Paul Odhiambo (Luo Union, 1975), Ray Wood (English, Kenya Breweries, 1977), Peter Odero (Kenya Breweries, 1978)
 Interestingly,

it is only foreign coaches who have bagged a hat-trick of crowns in the Kenyan top league. Ugandan Kiberu swept away all opponents with AFC Leopards in 1980, 1981 and 1982 after joining the big cats in 1978.

Briton Len Julians guided a superb Gor Mahia to victory in 1983, 1984 and 1985. But purely on ability, talent and leadership qualities the best coach in the league’s history could go to local boy Thigo of Gor Mahia with three titles.

As a prodigious talent, who was called up to the national team Harambee Stars while a teenager, Thigo became the Gor Mahia player/coach by default in 1974.

According to Thigo, a disagreement at the club following disputed elections saw several key players and the technical bench join a splinter group, leaving Gor Mahia a shell.

“I ended up being a player/coach and without a salary. We had to rebuild the team, scouting for players from Kisumu Hot Stars and all over the country including Nairobi and Mombasa in the space of just weeks. We had very good players like Dan Odhiambo, George Yoga, Laban Otieno, Bob Ogola, Paul Oduwo “Cobra”, Peter Ouma, Ogolla Kadir,” Thigo recounted to me.

He went on to win the league with many fresh players. Thigo was at it again in 1976, creating history by becoming the first coach to win the league title unbeaten. “We lost only five points the entire season,”  Thigo said with pride.

Thigo arguably had his best and worst year with Gor in 1979. Still featuring as a player/coach, he won the league title and guided K’Ogalo to the final of the Africa Cup Winners Cup where they lost to continental giants then Canon Sportiff de Yaounde of Cameroon.

“I was sacked thereafter, accused of selling the match,” Thigo told me with mirth. “How would Sportiff want to buy that match? They had players like Theophila Abega, Emmannuel Kunde, Thomas Nkono and the like. These were big players in the world. The best in Africa. They did not need to pay us to beat us.”

Only two other coaches have won the league unbeaten, Welshman Graham Williams with AFC Leopards in 1986, after guiding Ingwe to the semi-finals of the African Cup Winners Cup a year earlier, and Scot Frank Nuttal with Gor Mahia in 2015.

Gor have won their last six titles with foreign coaches, seven if you consider the cancelled 2020 season.

Personally, I would rate former Arsenal and Nottingham Forest forward Julian as Gor’s and the league’s most successful coach in terms of victories. He won a record four league titles, adding the 1991 crown to his 1980s hat-trick.

Gor Mahia, in fact, acknowledged on their official website that Julian, who passed on in 1993, as “perhaps the greatest coach ever to coach Gor Mahia football club”.

Of K’Ogalo’s 18 titles (19 if you add the cancelled 2020 league), 10 have been won by foreign coaches (11 if..)

Could that be the reason why their bitter rivals, 13-time champions Leopards, with seven titles won by foreign coaches, are also obsessed with men from across the shores?

On the other hand, Tusker have claimed all but two of their 11 diadems with local men.

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