Nick Mwendwa: Seven facts about his tenure, achievements and failures

Nick Mwendwa was elected president of Football Kenya Federation on 10 February 2016, succeeding Sam Nyamweya, who had opted out of the contest to retain the position he had held for just over four years.

Mwendwa’s ascendancy came with not just high expectations based on his promise but also unparalleled goodwill from all possible quarters, including the government machinery and the corporate sector.

This expectancy was premised on the campaign slogan he had coined and which, to many a folk, was representative of the energy of his age and peers who backed his bid.

He was the image of a vibrant change of guard that Kenyan football needed to move to the next level, a Larson of generational change in the management of the popular game in a manner that best captured the reality that the youth are not the leaders of tomorrow but we’re primed to take charge now.

As he gets down to the final six months of his first term in office, Kurunzi Sport takes a look at his record since coming into office, a tenure that has been, to many, a mixed bag but with more notable failures than achievements:

Fully functional secretariat and corporate governance structure

For many years, FKF has operated without any sound structure or functional secretariat that would stand the transitional nature of its political wing of things and often had the secretariat joined at the hip with personal offices of those heading the federation.

There was a bit of a break when, during Mohamed Hatimy tenure, the federation had no known secretariat as they often operated from hotel lobbies and their homes.

Nyamweya began the journey to having a known permanent secretariat during his time and even made the case for moving FKF operations to the Goal Project base at Kasarani.

But while Nyamweya would take credit for his vision, nobody can take it away from Mwendwa for how he has transformed FKF into a serious institution with proper operational systems.

He has made it the administrative monster it should be and credit must be given to him for that.

Hats off because now there is order and things work well and one does not need to be close to someone there to get information and any stranger landing in Kenya can pick their football direction by searching the FKF address and walking there.

Harambee Starlets qualification to AWCON finals

This is an achievement that Mwendwa would want to cling onto but Nyamweya takes all the credit because he, like he has consistently claimed, laid the foundation for the team – starting with the close shave in the hands of South Africa’s Banyana Banyana in their bid for the 2016 Olympics ticket.

Then, Nyamweya said how the women’s team was closer to the big stage than their male counterparts. Indeed, it came to pass within a year of Mwendwa’s term when the Starlets made it for the AWCON in 2017.

Mwendwa deserves plaudits for how the team was prepared for the qualifiers and the finals, it was all meticulous and he deserves a pat on the back.

National teams performance and AFCON qualifications

While the country is still celebrating the feat of qualifying for Egypt 2019, where kindergatern mindsets have tried to suggest Kenya did well on account of two of the teams they played in the group stage playing in the final, Mwendwa’s has been catastrophic to say the least.

It all started with the facade that was the appointment of Okumbi to replace Bobby Williamson as Harambee Stars coach and the ignominy that followed with the team bowing in submission to Guinea Bissau home and away.

Then followed the sham qualification for this year’s AFCON as a result of the suspension of Sierra Leone by FIFA.

It must never be forgotten that Sierra Leone had beaten Kenya and had a better chance of qualification than Sebastien Migne’s team had the whip not been cracked against them. Arguably, it must be said that it was out of sheer luck and the misfortune that befell the West Africans that Kenya made it to Egypt.

However, Mwendwa can take some consolation from winning against Ghana in Nairobi, beating Ethiopia convincingly at home and managing a point away in Addis Ababa.

There is nothing to write home about with regards to the performance in Egypt, if anything it was the poorest Kenya had posted considering the investment Kenyans had put in for the team’s preparations – it was the best ever and to only manage a ‘routine victory’ over Tanzania was disappointing and little value for money.

In 2004, Kenya managed a win and two losses; the same return they came back with from Egypt so there is nothing this team achieved and when viewed against the prevailing circumstances then the return on investment is negative to the Kenyan people.

Stakeholder engagement and sponsorships

Mwendwa came on the promise of corporate and government goodwill, premise of which there were high expectations on the federation’s sponsorship portfolio.

Whereas it was a thin sponsorship portfolio he inherited, he done little to improve it; if anything he has made it even thinner in the short time he has been there.

Best case in point is the withdrawal of SuperSport from Kenyan football.

The frozen relationship with other stakeholders has also gone south, taking the case of the Kenyan Premier League, among others. Where he found things worse off he has not changed anything, going by the case of Extreme Sports who have continued running their parallel leagues.

FKF branches and sub-branches themsleeves continue to lament how they have been neglected and poorly facilitated by the national office to undertake their operations, despite the federation’s financial status improving since the election of Gianni Infantino as FIFA President.

The Financial Assistance Program has been expanded with every member association of FIFA receiving at least USD1.5 million annually.

Communications and broadcasting equipment

The federation’s communications department had for many years been operating without a proper structure and Mwendwa’s team convinced world-governing body FIFA to help them enhance their capacity through a grant.

A total of KSh135 million was disbursed in late 2018 to facilitate the acquisition of a complete outside broadcasting van which the federation announced at a news conference.

Close to a year later, the OB van is yet to be delivered and the federation had not given any explain why their assurance that the van would be available from end of February has not been kept.

Questions abound on the whereabouts of this project and why it is shrouded in mystery to the effect that clubs playing in continental competitions have lost money as a result of the federation’s failure to secure the production equipment.

CHAN 2018 hosting rights withdrawn

In 2015, Kenya were handed the right to host the Africa Nations Championship (CHAN) 2018 finals.

This was the marquee project that Mwendwa inherited, the first time Kenya would have hosted a top football competition in Africa.

However, it ended up as a cropper after, due to lack of leadership and strategic advise to the government, Kenya was stripped off the right to host the event. Mwendwa was the chairman of the Local Organizing Committee which had Herbert Mwachiro as CEO.

More than KSh200 million had allocated by government and which Mwachiro, who has since bitterly fallen out with Mwendwa, says was premise for their disagreement.

The FKF boss has never spoken in reference to that issue, rather maintaining the safest assertion that failure to host was due to government inability to have stadia ready on time.

Football development and leagues

The top-flight league has been running as a separate entity, following the agreement signed in 2015 so the federation’s focus has been on all the other leagues, including women’s football leagues.

Mwendwa inherited a properly constituted and structured National Super League, while issues of the expansion of the KPL from 16 to 18 had already been resolved between FKF and the KPL limited – the latter being the body charged with the administration of the league.

There was a Women’s Premier League as well as lower leagues administered by the federation through the different units of the FKF.

Nothing much has changed with respect to the league’s except for the setting up of the national football academy and the youth leagues which, largely, exist only on paper.

There has been a narrative that Chapa Dimba, a competition with a more corporate architecture than about development, is impacting on football development but idealists think otherwise.

The tournament has become an opportunity for trips within Kenya and abroad, with winning teams only getting the chance to visit Europe with nothing tangibly sustainable in terms of football development philosophy.

The WPL has been on and off, with teams at some point threatening to form their own splinter league if a promise to disburse KSh700,000 by Mwendwa was not kept.

That matter has been on ice for some time and was recently rekindled over the selection to the national women’s team was riddled with controversy as some experienced players were suspended for demanding to be paid pending allowances.

There was very loud talk of how the sexual orientation of certain members of the team was affecting selection into the team – a matter that became the subject of national discourse and still yet to settle.

It is the final lap into the end of Mwendwa’s first term and the jury is out there for all to analyse and judge but as that happens, the football fraternity and the wider public must gauge performance against the promises made and the prevailing circumstances.

His political networks and goodwill from all over the place has no taste helped him much to deliver on his pledge.

Kurunzi Sport scores Nick Mwendwa and his administration at a lowly 4/10 because of how many of his promises he has not kept.