Former Harambee Stars midfielder Sammy Shollei believes disunity among former footballers is one of the major reasons the game has been hijacked by unscrupulous individuals out to make a killing.
Shollei said most players hold on to club loyalties and rivalries from their old playing days and hence cannot work together to change football for the better.
“I have tried many times to bring former players into the federation and it is not easy because we still have that culture of who played for which team. AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia players are not close to each other and those who played for Tusker carry themselves as elites, superior to others which is not true,” the former Kenya Breweries player said.
One way of bringing change to the game, Shollei believes, is for former footballers to run for office and expel cartels that are milking football dry at the expense of talented players.
“No unscrupulous person will want to work with former players because we are very straight people. East or West, they will face you and tell you the truth. If you are wrong they will face you and tell as much,” Shollei said.
He lamented that most former footballers are afraid of the battles that often characterize elections thus would rather remain on the sidelines.
“Our culture has always been to entertain fans, not politicking. At any point one starts a fight, shouts at us, or uses some political words, we get scared and push ourselves to the corner. It is not our culture to shout and that is why many shy away from football management,” he said.
While meeting former playing mates in Eldoret where his football career was shaped, Shollei, however, urged them to take up the positions in running of football if the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Caretaker Committee calls for elections as soon as possible.
Shollei, who also hinted at contesting for the FKF presidency when elections are called, asked the Caretaker Committee to issue a roadmap for the polls.
“We don’t know if the caretaker committee will come up with totally different rules or paperwork on how to run elections. We don’t know if they are working together or where their offices are. This is total confusion,” he said.
He also called out the now-disbanded FKF for failing to comply with the Sports Act 2013.
“Sports Act has been there since 2013 but FKF has been running away from it because there are a lot of rules that will streamline football. It states that every money that comes into the federation should be accounted for and that is the area that nobody wants to go to. People want to get money from the government, corporations, and Fifa but they don’t want to be questioned on how they spend it.”
