The 21st century has witnessed a lot of revolution and technology around sports. From depending on pay TV to streaming matches on the go.
Sports betting also evolved during this time and it became more sophisticated by day. In July 2014, the betting industry witnessed a major revival with giant betting firm Sportpesa joining the market. They sponsored the Kenya Premier League and several clubs in the country including Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards.
But as they say, in society, you never lack a bad worm in every good looking apple field. The country has witnessed rampant match fixing that have seriously brought the game into disrepute.
During the 2016 Kenya Premier League season, Sportpesa had to withdraw all KPL matches from their site after evidence of match fixing that had poked holes in the already broke league.
The ghost of doom seems to be slowly haunting the now rebranded Football Kenya Premier League which apparently is being sponsored by Betking at a tune of Ksh 1 billion for five years.
Record Kenyan champions Gor Mahia are on the spot for fixing matches that they could easily have won.
On Monday March 15, “Friends of Football” Twitted that Gor Mahia FC chairman Ambrose Rachier has admitted that there are proven cases of match fixing amongst their ranks. He says that they were narrowing down on the culprits and this could just be the beginning of a scandalous war that can bring the game down.
Earlier on in February, police nabbed a Ugandan national, Fred Ronald Niwagira Mwine, in a Kisumu hotel, for purportedly attempting to bribe players in order to influence the outcome of a Football Kenya Federation Premier League(FKF PL) fixture between Western Stima and KCB at Nakuru Afraha Stadium.
Mwine had already placed KSh70,000 on the table as down payment in an enticing deal that could have seen the team manager, four defenders and a goalkeeper ultimately share out a KSh600,000 among themselves if the deal had gone through. Western Stima chairman Laban Jobita broke the ice and promised to crack the whip which he indeed did by firing the entire technical bench and 13 outfield players, replacing them with a new lot.
In January 2019, Ugandan coach Paul Nkata then at Kakamega Homeboyz was dismissed after he was accused of allegedly engaging in acts of manipulating match results. He together with his assistant Hamza Kalanzi and midfielder George Mandela(all Ugandans) were accused by club owner Cleophas Shimanyula who had no choice but to fire them.
The development came just a few days after Fifa invoked article 69 paragraph one of the Fifa Disciplinary Code to ban Homeboyz players Moses Chikati, Festo Omukoto, Festus Okiring and George Mandela who were found guilty of the vice.
On April 24, 2019, former Harambee Stars player George ‘Wise’ Owino was banned from all football-related activities for 10 years and fined KSh1.5 million by Fifa over match-fixing. It is believed that the former Kenya international defender commited the crimes in 2010. His counterpart Willis Ochieng’,now the Gor Mahia FC goalkeeping coach, was let off the hook after FIFA confirmed that they were not going to place charges over him.
Such incidents have since brought into question the integrity of the game and if the word in the street is to go by, then Gor Mahia are in serious trouble.
Team Kenya has established that there is already a rift in the K’Ogalo camp and the latest claims by their chairman confirm what was already being talked about.
A senior member of the K’Ogalo bench on Sunday admitted that there was a big rift in the team and match fixing claims could also not be dismissed especially in the goalkeeping department. He says that so many things have been happening behind the scenes and it is not by surprise that this is happening.
“There have been incidences whereby we even question how we let in some easy goals,”
“Against Vihiga United, we conceded a very weird late goal, we asked ourselves what the goalkeeper and the defence line were doing,” he said.
“As much as we have been posting poor results, some of them are not supposed to be happening,” he quipped.
With such claims coming from the club hierarchy and a member of the technical bench, serious questions will be asked about the other clubs that we have not heard their story.
A quick look at the results posted during certain matchdays tells you that something is fishy but that is a story for another day.