Hardly a week after KCB head coach Zedekiah ‘Zico’ Otieno lamented on Kenya Premier League’s decision to push Mombasa duels to kick off at 2 pm, Mathare United’s Salim Ali has followed suit.
Zico heavily blasted the league body for their 2-1 loss at the hands of Bandari last week where he noted that the scorching heat played a role in the loss and posed a health hazard to both sets of players.
Last weekend, Mathare went down 3-1 to the dockers at the Mbaraki Stadium— a result which left Ali bitter with KPL for pushing forward the kick-off by an hour. Ali said the fixture was earlier planned to serve off at 3 pm but was brought forward, forcing his players to bear with the extremely humid conditions.
Ali called upon KPL to contemplate delaying Mombasa kickoffs to 4 pm as a precaution measure to player safety. He noted that Bandari players also felt the effects of the heat despite training at the same venue and in the same conditions.
“We had a god game but the heat worked against us. Initially, the match was supposed to kick off at 3 pm but even though the changes were made in time, it is only reasonable if Bandari matches kick off at 4 pm. The heat not only affects the visiting teams but the hosts too. It's dangerous to play under such conditions and I challenge KPL to consider delaying kick off until the heat subsides to bearable lows,” lamented the former player
Besides the early kickoff, Ali fumed at his charges for staging a below-par performance in the first half of the game, where two quick successive goals late in the half from Abdallah Hassan and Willian Wadri gave Bandari a 2-0 lead before breaking for the breather.
“I wasn't impressed with the way we played in the first half. We were erratic and impatient when in the possession and made rushed decisions. We came back in the final half and managed to half the deficit but conceded at death due to lack of concentration. We will seek to iron out a few mistakes we made before we play our next match,” he added.
