If Doris Petra had not stood down on Saturday, she would have had difficulties running the affairs of football in this country going forward.
For a woman who has been more of a flower girl than a football administrator, her presence as the poster girl of the Blue Wall didn’t sit well with many. Not because she had roughed people before, but because of her nature of being silent when her boss, Nick Mwendwa, was tearing the Kenyan football into shreds.
Fans had grown impatient with Mwendwa, and it was not uncommon to see him walk with heavily built busybodies every time he came to a match venue near him. When you are the President of a Federation and you cannot step into the stadium without human defence shields, you know, for sure, that you’re living on borrowed time.
Mwendwa’s tenure has been replete with retrogressive decrees meant to preserve an illicit status quo, but on Saturday, when his candidate announced her stepping down, she proved to us all that she actually has a brain. By picking the know-it-all Mwendwa, Petra picked the wrong guy to back her candidacy.
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Hussein Mohammed’s victory is a victory for us all. It’s a victory for those football Kenya fans, who have been plucked from stadiums for having contrary opinions to the powers that be. Football, in this country, has survived purely on the goodwill, and passion, of fans – they are the unsung heroes of our game and my prayer is that the new office finds ways of incorporating this passionate lot as they work on improving our standards.
Sir Alex Ferguson says, in his award-winning Autobiography ‘Leading’, that, and I quote; “…it is much easier to do difficult things if others like you. Though I have never tried to court popularity, I always tried to pay particular attention to people at (Manchester) United – or at the other clubs I was involved with – who worked behind the scenes and were our unsung heroes. It wasn’t a false front; it just seemed like the right thing to do. These people weren’t getting the multimillion-pound salaries or public acclaim, and didn’t wear Patek Philippe watches or drive Bentleys. Some of them – the laundry team, the groundsmen, the hospitality waitresses – took the bus to work. They were the mainstays of the club. It was very easy for me to feel an affinity towards them since most had backgrounds much like my own.”
A vote for Hussein Mohammed, we were told, was a vote for the resurrection of football fortunes in this country. The delegates have done their part, it is now time for Mohammed – tapping on the goodwill of our fans – to do his.
And we are all here to help him.
