It is great news indeed that the Kenya Premier League have
signed a new sponsorship deal with local betting firm SportPesa, said to be in the region of Ksh 360 million spread over four
and half years.
The revival of Kenyan football owes a lot to the return of football sponsorship in the country, with the Supersport-KPL deal several years
ago laying a firm foundation for the decent football successes being enjoyed in
the local football scene today.
The importance of sponsorship to the well being of
Kenyan football was aptly acknowledged by KPL Chairman Ambrose Rachier during
the official announcement of the Sportspesa deal on Thursday.
“We warmly welcome SportPesa to KPL. The sponsorship will
help maintain the level of success the league has enjoyed in the region,” Mr
Rachier said.
According to Nairobi
News, the agreement is for Ksh 80 million with a ten percent increment every
year bringing the total figure over the entire duration of the contract to
around Sh 360 million.
This would be a great improvement on the previous sponsorship of Ksh 170 million from East Africa Breweries Limited that expired in June.
Before the signing of a US$ 5.5 million television broadcast
rights deal between Supersport and KPL, Kenyan football had sunk to its lowest
level, with the best Kenyan footballers abandoning local clubs for greener
pastures in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
However, the deal not only brought these players back home
but started an influx of foreign players into local football that has persisted
to date. The Supersport deal was later enhanced to about Ksh 1 billion and is
in its final year.
These deals have shown us a glimpse of what is possible with
proper and professional football management. Indeed, were it not for football
sponsorship, instead of cheering Gor Mahia at the recently concluded CECAFA
Kagame Cup in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we would have long mourned and forgotten its
demise from Kenyan football.
We are all witnesses to what money can do to a country’s
football, the reference here of course being the English Premier League, which
was transformed into the best football league in the world through the
injection of astronomical amounts of cash from both inside and outside Great
Britain.
The league only recently announced a new staggering £5.136 billion
TV rights deal effective from the 2016 season and Manchester United, the most
successful premier league club, have just started enjoying a mouth watering ten
year £750 million Adidas shirt sponsorship deal.
These are figures that we can not even start to dream about
in Kenya, but they offer strong motivation that financial support can transform
a country’s football world.
The scene in Kenya is made unattractive to sponsors by poor
club management, corruption and recurrent infighting between Football Kenya
Federation and KPL.
We need to emulate European football’s best practices and
strengthen our administrative structures. Once we do this, we shall be in an
even stronger position to bargain for much more lucrative sponsorship deals
that will surely benefit everyone involved in Kenyan football.
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