Savour the moment, the World Rally Championship is finally coming home

President Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed

President Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed during the handover ceremony of World Rally Championship (WRC) Safari Rally at State House, Nairobi on June 17, 2021. 

Photo credit: Pool | PSCU

What you need to know:

  • WRC Safari Rally CEO Kimathi has told of the long and tedious negotiations that took him and his team to many countries to win support for Safari Rally

I know of very few sports administrators who are as passionate about sports as Mwangi Muthee, the former Kenyan international who has also served as chairman of the Kenya Rugby Union.

As a player, Muthee served Mwamba RFC and Kenya 15s rugby team with undivided attention.

As an official from 2011 to 2015, he went an extra mile to entrench sound leadership and accountability at the federation, and to attract corporate sponsorship. Some would say his tenure at KRU was marred by conflict of interest.

Faced with a growing chorus to move the annual Safari Sevens from the less spacious RFUEA Grounds in Nairobi to the Nyayo National Stadium just after being elected KRU chairman in 2011, Muthee yielded and staged the invitational tournament at Nyayo Stadium for two years, then moved it to a more spacious Moi International Sports Centre Kasarani Stadium in 2013.

But that year’s tournament coincided with the terrorist attack at West Gate Mall in Westlands which killed 71 people, including four attackers.

Kenya Sevens beat Australia Renegades 40-7 to win the Main Cup, but Muthee was lost in thought and cut a lonely figure at the VIP dais. With every news bulletin, the death toll from West Gate kept rising. Muthee must have breathed a sigh of relief at the final whistle.

Perhaps knowing well that the terrorists could have as well chosen the well-attended tournament to execute their evil schemes, Muthee was in tears when he took to the podium to present the winners’ trophy to Kenya Sevens. I have never seen a man so relieved.

Coming almost three years after event was confirmed and after surviving many challenges, including a global pandemic, organisers of the 2021 World Rally Championship Safari Rally will feel both a sense of relief and joy.

Folks, the Safari Rally that we have waited for with bated breath is final here. Since September 27, 2019 when the world motorsport governing body FIA announced that the Safari Rally would return to the World Rally Championship (WRC) the following year, it has been many months of anxiety for local fans of rallying.

In his address to the nation on September 27, 2019, President Uhuru Kenyatta outlined the “long and torturous” journey it took to return the Safari Rally to the global series.

“Before my administration assumed office in 2013, I made a promise to the people of Kenya to return the Safari Rally to the WRC family. This process has taken us seven years. It is my pleasure to announce today to the people of Kenya and Africa that this process has been concluded and the Safari Rally has been included in the FIA WRC 2020 Calendar, making the return to Kenya and Africa after 18 years of waiting…”

KMSF President and WRC Safari Rally CEO Phineas Kimathi himself has told journalists of the long and tedious negotiations that took him and his team to many countries to win support for the Safari Rally.

It took the support of the government, long days of work by the KMSF and the Safari Rally Project team, and a listening ear from FIA President Jean Todt, World Rally Championship Promoter Oliver Ciesla, KMSF boss Kimathi and officials from the Sports ministry for making the “Safari Rally Project” a reality, President Kenyatta promised to support the 2020 Safari Rally and future editions of the event.

The return of one of global motorsport’s legendary fixtures to the WRC calendar for the first time since 2002 was greeted with joy, but as is normally the case with many good things, a series of hurdles lay ahead.

The Safari Rally, earlier scheduled for July 16 – 19 last year, was to be the eighth round of the 2020 WRC calendar, but local rally fans would have to brave at least one cancellation, and a long anxious wait fit to trigger infantile rage in full grown adults.

While we were still celebrating the good news, Covid-19 pandemic happened and the event, which was held for the first time in 1953 as the Coronation Rally before joining the WRC family in 1973, was postponed. Starting Thursday, 58 crews, at least 29 of them from Kenya, will be at the ceremonial start at Kenyatta International Convention Centre, followed by a Special Spectator stage at Kasarani.