Nairobi — It will be another two years before Kenyans can dare dream of featuring in the Africa Cup of Nations. The country's campaign for the World Cup and Africa Nations Cup in 2010 was nipped in the bud largely because of poor management and wrangles off the pitch.

At a time when the world's focus is on Africa because South Africa will host the World Cup and Angola the continental championship, Kenya has written its own death warrant in football development.

While the decision by head coach Antoine Hey to abscond duty at the eleventh hour contributed to Kenya's loss to Nigeria on Saturday, Harambee Stars boat had been swept away long before.

Football Kenya Limited stands accused of consigning the country to the current mess and should resign. Ever since the current crop of officials took charge, mayhem has characterised events in the Harambee Stars camp.

After Francis Kimanzi steadied the boat past the first phase qualification, continuity was blocked and FKL agreed to bring in Hey, a coach who had no knowledge of our type of football or class of players. The end result was disagreement with some players whom he condemned out of the team.

Now that Kenya's only hope of playing serious international football is up in smoke, the government, FKL and even the rival Kenya Football Federation (KFF) must work together to restore sanity to local soccer management.