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Kenya: Soccer - Hunt for New Stars' Coach is Stepped Up
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The Nation (Nairobi)
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Charles Nyende
Nairobi
The Kenya Football Federation wants to settle the issue of hiring the Harambee Stars coach for the 2010 World Cup campaign this week.
The federation's secretary, Sammy Obingo, however, said the decision on who would be hired very much depended on the discussions the KFF was holding with the Government.
"The situation of our national coach should be settled by the end of this week. The coach to be named must begin his work at once. There is no time left now for us to prepare," Obingo said.
The federation has been in consultation with the Government on how it can be assisted in providing funds to support the wages of a foreign coach and Harambee Stars' preparations.
"Kenyans want a foreign coach. But for us to get one we need an addition Sh20 million to the Sh100 million we budgeted for the World Cup campaign. That is the kind of money the federation cannot afford," Obingo said.
"If we can get that money we will give Kenyans a foreign coach in three to four days. We have been talking to a few of them as recently as yesterday," Obingo added but declined to give any names.
The federation has repeatedly talked about the prohibitive costs of getting a foreigner to handle Harambee Stars and insisted financial government support was necessary.
Sports Commissioner Gordon Oluoch said funding national teams was not the mandate of the Government. He, however, added that the ministry will work with the federation to ensure a successful World Cup campaign.
"We want a strong, professional national team that will be able to take on the campaign effectively for qualification to the 2010 World Cup and African Cup of Nations," Oluoch said.
Harambee Stars have not had a contracted coach since Bernard Lama's walk out in September, 2006, incidentally after he claimed he had not been given a signed deal by the federation. In between, Tom Olaba and then Jacob Mulee have stood in.
The 2010 World Cup-cum-African Nations Cup campaign begins in just over three weeks.
Congested programme
A congested one-month programme next month sees Kenya away to Namibia on June 1, at home against Guinea on June 7 and Zimbabwe on June 14 before taking on Zimbabwe in the reverse fixture a weeks later.
Obingo said the federation simply did not have the money to sustain the compaign.
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The $200,000 (about Sh12.4 million) per year KFF gets from Fifa in financial assistance is used for development, meaning the federation has to look elsewhere for Harambee Stars' funding.
Persist wrangles within the KFF over the past few years has eroded a lot of its credibility in the eyes of potential corporate sponsors who have in turn shied away
Obingo said the federation will settle on a local coach should they fail to get the necessary funds to afford a professional tactician from outside Kenya.
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