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By Kenn Okaka
Twenty years ago, the football arena in Kenya saw the entry, into the fray, of a new tournament dubbed ‘Super 8 grassroots football tournament that was played off season by grassroots football teams in Nairobi.
Founded and organised by one Hussein Mohammed under the Extremesports banner, Super 8 promised to bridge the gap between professional football leagues and the grassroots.
However, two decades later, Super 8 is no more, this after it turned out that the founder of the tournament organised it as a stepping stone to the Football Kenya Federation leadership and propel him into national politics and not as a tool to develop football at the grassroots underscoring a painful fact that Hussein is a villain to the Kenyan Football fabric and not the saviour he want people to belive in. But why this turn of events?
For starters, the tournament first started as a boat riding competition in Mombasa and the idea of football came in later when Hussein noticed that he could join federation politics riding on the super 8 cloud. Born in Dagoretti, Hussein after failing to win a seat in FKF, he tried his hand in politics vying for the Kasarani parliamentary seat in 2017, which he failed. A man who understands very minimal dynamics of football, Hussein and his Extreme sports have done nothing for the grassroots teams playing in his tourmanent but oversee their fall, even as he continues to lie that it has been a successful tournament.
Suffice to say without fear of contradiction; the former Pambazuka National Lottery Chief Executive Officer employed the wrong tactics in the organization of Super 8 which then saw most of the teams folding up, yet, he is the same man today seeking to be the FKF President, backed by only two of the 15 FKF National Executive Committee Members and one FKF Premier league club.
In the past, I personally advised Hussein that off season tournaments are an opportunity for players to earn some money and that is the key reason why these off season tournaments are popular.
For grassroots football teams, the players are amateur and participating in local tournaments means an opportunity to earn some income from football unlike in professional teams where players are on a salary. However, Hussein, well aware that he was not ready to promptly pay the winners of his tournament, insisted that the winners prize money would be going into community projects and this, being the only way that players would earn form their talent meant that most of the teams had to wind up.
A clueless Hussein has over the years organised the tournament just ahead of the FKF polls and upon loosing, the tournament ceases to be held until another political opportunity arises again killing the morale of the players and in the end killing the spirit of the teams which then die a natural death.
An opportunist, Hussein was fired from both the Pambazuka national lottery and the Kenya at 50 celebrations secretariat over alleged embezzlement of funds during a time that he had put his super 8 tournament on a hiatus stagnating the dreams of grassroots football teams.
In totality, extreme sports has therefore no success story as opposed to other tournaments like Chapa Dimba na Safaricom in which the parents of the students are paid on behalf of the players but Hussein who has no basic knowledge of football at the grassroots.
Now heading to the FKF elections, Hussein is idle and has chosen to try his luck as FKF president. Backed by Murang’a seals chairman Robert Macharia and two NEC Members Hussein hopes to compete against incumbent Nick Mwendwa. The Murang’a seal chairman, who is also an alleged beneficiary of the Pambazuka Ksh 500 Million heist in his capacity a lawyer who represented Hussein when he was accused of stealing from the lottery and was subsequently fired.
FKF delegates last week resoundingly made it clear that Hussein is not a member of FKF and as such, he was not eligible to represent Murang’a seal at the FKF Annual General Meeting. The 76 delegates meeting in Nairobi have all ralied behind Mwendwa meaning that only 18 delegates are undecided ahead of the elections. As for Eastern’s Nabea Murithi and North Eastern’s Ahmedqadar, their re-election as NEC members is a pipe dream and with their fallout with the rest of the delegates, they have no capacity to marshall any support for Hussein, all this while, Hussein continues to use the influence of EALA MP Hassan Omar, his college classmate and bosom buddy to try and whip emotions unsuccessfully.
The FKF delegates underscored that Murang’a SEAL FC representative at the upcoming AGM Mr. Hussein Mohammed flagrantly disregards the FKF constitutional provisions as he is not registered as a member of FKF and his name, purportedly as the Muranga seal vice chairman is not in the register filed with FKF.
Kenn Okaka is a Media and Communications Consultant and a Football Stakeholder
