Not even the intervention of Arsenal's Mike Arteta or AS Roma's Jose Murinho can salvage Harambee Stars from the jaws of defeat, FKF President Nick Mwendwa has admitted
The FKF honcho made the startling remarks during an interview with NTV on Tuesday evening, saying the current crop of players were all below par.
Said Mwendwa lividly: “Even if you bring Mourinho, even if you bring Arteta here, the work that needs to be done is that we need to bring the talent on the table and for you to win, we need quality players.”
His outbursts came exactly a day after the Stars suffered their second consecutive defeat at the hands of the high-riding Les Aigles.
Mali drubbed Kenya 5-0 in Morocco in the first leg encounter before pipping the East African nation 1-0 again in their own backyard in the repeat tie at Nyayo Stadium on Sunday.
The outcome sent Harambee Stars packing from the continental showpiece that is being staged to identify Africa's representatives in the forthcoming World Cup slated for Qatar next year.
Mwendwa said it would be an uphill task bringing the Kenyan lads at par with the crème de la crème of the world.
“So let’s look at Mali for example, are we better than Mali? The Answer is that we are not because we have never brought out our players to that level. I want to tell Kenyans that we want to win and I am working every day to make Kenya win,” he said.
The FKF supremo honcho said the only way to break the jinx would be to lay down effective youth development structures.
“We had Olivee Page here in 2019 who selected a team of U-17 who were 23 of them. Sixteen of those have already found their way into the Kenyan Premier League clubs and we need to do that every year.
“We need to even go to U-14 and this should be the trend. We are building the talent that is going to come tomorrow and this must start from the lowest level,” Mwendwa submitted.
Mwendwa said that FKF's decision to settle on Engin Firat was informed by failure of local coaches to prove their mettle in the dugout as well as past ugly incidents with foreign coaches which led to heavy compensations.
He, however, tipped Stars to emerge from the streak of defeat, adding he observed marked improvement in their performance at Nyayo Stadium on Sunday.
“We went away to Mali, I would say that we played very well but conceded five goals of which four were in the first half which obviously made it very tough.
Playing within three days against a team that has beaten you five is normally very tough. But on Sunday we really played very well though we couldn’t utilise our chances where we lost 1-0 and this one leaves us not in a very good place,” Mwendwa said.
