Kenya risks losing the proposed International Tennis Federation (ITF) training centre at Moi Stadium, Kasarani owing to lack of government funding.
Tennis Kenya (TK) secretary general, Wanjiru Mbugua Karani, said ITF have expressed concerns over the lack of development.
She said should the country not show any meaningful progress on the project, the centre could be moved to Rwanda,or South Africa in the next few months.
Mbugua said they are yet to receive the letter of allotment from government on the land and the project has yet to take off two and half years down the line. “We are always being told to write a letter to government time and again. We have written 22 letters asking for work to commence but so far nothing has been done,” she added.
The training centre was to cost between Sh400 and Sh600 million with government footing close to 90 per cent of the budget.
ITF had given a grant of Sh5 million to cater for nets, tennis balls, cameras and other miscellaneous expenses for the facility.
The facility was to rival the ITF Training Centre in Morocco and Pretoria South Africa and at the same time, attract players from the East and Central Africa region.
According to Mbugua, the training centre was to have 24 tennis courts with 16 of them being clay court and eight hard courts.
Other facilities earmarked for construction included cafeteria, an administration block, swimming pool, hostels, gymnasium and floodlights.
Players who were still in school would get an opportunity to be home schooled at the training centre.
The centre was also supposed to play host to regional and continental tournaments of repute due to the world class facilities at the venue.
Mbugua said the centre was a win-win for everyone. “Instead of budding tennis players looking to join membership clubs which are very prohibitive, the centre was to be open for them for free,” she added.
The ITF president, David Haggerty, visited the country in April 2018 and was present at the ground breaking ceremony alongside TK officials and the then Sports Cabinet Secretary, Rashid Echesa and Principal Secretary Amb Peter Kaberia .
Haggerty paid President Uhuru Kenyatta a courtesy call at State House and got the government’s full commitment on the project. Efforts to get a comment from Sports PS Job Okudo were futile.
