Mathare United now blames caretaker committee for their woes
Mathare United who have been relegated from the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Premier League have blamed their woes to the FKF Caretaker Committee which is the precursor of the Transition Committee formed by Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed last week.
The cash-strapped club outlined several ‘facts’ on the committee’s shortcomings based on the grants which all the 18 participating teams were receiving from the committee courtesy of the ministry.
Mathare, which was formed in 1994, before joining top tier football in 1999, was demoted to the National Super League (NSL) after skipping three consecutive matches-against Bandari, Ulinzi and Sofapaka.
Club Chairman Bob Munro said that before the decision by the committee to expel them, they were financially viable to honor eight of their remaining fixtures but took the option of diverting the funds to cater for starving players and their families.
In a statement addressed to the committee, Munro said were it not for the committee sending to them grants late, they would have honoured their three matches in question but that did not happen, which would later turn to be their Achilles heel.
Belated monthly grant
He further said the club received the belated monthly grant from the committee a day after its mandate had ended and long after the team had been condemned to banishment.
“In sum, if the FKF CC had paid its grants arrears four days earlier, those funds were sufficient to avoid forfeiting our third match plus also cover the costs of our five remaining matches,” said Munro.
He added: “Had the committee paid its overdue grant arrears before April 23rd, our club could have avoided forfeiting any of the matches in question and instead been able to cover all the costs of our eight remaining matches then.”
Munro indicated that before November 11 2021 when FKF was disbanded and replaced by the Caretaker Committee, they were receiving grants averaging Sh960,000 per month.
Munro further expounds that the team would later comply with the committee’s request to table their basic income and expenditure for the 2021/22 season
“On November 27, 2021 our club sent our basic income and expenditure for the season as requested which clearly showed our need and dependence on the monthly grants,”
Added Munro: “Then on December 1, 2021 the committee announced that it would provide logistical support of Sh300,000 for each of the Premier League Clubs.”
All clubs, including Mathare, did get the subsidy on December 22 after which they sent a detailed note to the committee on the escalating financial instability of most of them which was never acted on.
Explained Munro: “The committee replied, inter alia that it was working with the ministry to resolve and ensure that no club collapses over financial instability.”
Munro confirmed that the committee paid its second monthly grant on January 23, 2022 but on April 23 the clubs had only enough to cover the costs of its last eight matches.
To this end, Munro said, they chose to reduce the financial pressures on its players and their families, hence missing the first of the three matches against Bandari which they would later forfeit. An MRI scan on a player and office rent plus payment of other debts gobbled the other amount.
