Football
Exclusive: FKF boss Nick Mwendwa Promises Improved Premier League Set to Kick Off on August 24
FKF President Nick Mwendwa promises an improved FKF Premier League with increased live broadcasts and new plans for women's football. The 2024/25 season kicks off on August 24.
Image Credits: SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa has outlined improved broadcast plans for the new 2024/25 FKF Premier League season.
Speaking exclusively to SportsBoom.com at the sidelines of the FKF Gala Awards, Mwendwa further confirmed the new season will kick off with matchday one matches on August 24 with fixtures set to be released in the second week of the month.
Mwendwa revealed plans to increase live broadcast matches from three to six every weekend, and further hinted at having all the nine matches played every weekend live on TV in the next campaign.
FKF Premier League to Have Six Live Matches
“Our Premier League will get even better next season, we will have six live matches, an increase of three matches from the previous season, and we are still talking to our broadcast partners to eventually make sure the next season after 2024/25, we will have all the nine weekend matches live on TV,” Mwendwa told SportsBoom.com.
“These alone is a great milestone achieved by FKF, at first we used to have only specific matches for the top teams maybe Gor Mahia, AFC Leopards and somehow Tusker live on TV, we came in and introduced three live matches every weekend, and now we are going even bigger, six matches every weekend live on TV to those not able to go the stadium to cheer their teams.”
Mwendwa further announced that the neglected FKF Women Premier League will have a share of airtime on their broadcast partners Azam TV and Kenya's government owned TV channel Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC).
Not only increasing live matches for the men’s league, we will also have women League live on TV for the first time ever, most of their (women League) were being transmitted live on the FKF social media pages but now we are making another step to have at least two of their matches aired live by our broadcast partners.
Nick Mwendwa
Mwendwa revealed plans to change the FKF Gala Awards from night to the day, by saying: “We have showcased what football Kenya is in this gala in fact in the future it will start during the day and end in the night, we will be bringing division one teams, division two teams, you know, people doing that difficult job at the lowest and bottom most part of the game because that is where football comes from.
“We will be telling stories of players that have made it, we will be telling stories of players that didn’t make it, we will be telling stories of officials and coaches. This is the essence of the change that we want to bring to the Gala Awards.”
Mwendwa continued: “Our success is accumulation of step by step work of doing things incrementally, over time knowing that you have an end goal but taking the first step and the second step and continuing to do it even when it is painful, we are not there yet but I can say we will be there.”
During the Gala awards, Gor Mahia and Harambee Stars midfielder Austin Odhiambo and Kenya Police Bullets’ Lydia Akoth were honored as the Most Valuable Players (MVP) for the FKF Premier League and FKF Women Premier League, respectively.
In addition to the individual accolades, Gor Mahia and Kenya Police Bullets secured the Coach of the Year awards. Jonathan Mckinstry was named FKF Premier League Coach of the Year, while Beldine Odemba, who led her team to an unbeaten season, was celebrated as the FKF WPL Coach of the Year.
Gor Mahia striker Benson Omalla earned the FKF Premier League Golden Boot with an impressive tally of 19 goals. His counterpart in the FKF Women's Premier League, Vihiga Queens’ forward Tumaini Waliaula, scored 16 goals to claim the top spot in the women’s league.
Image Credits: Simon MAINA / AFP) (Photo by SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images
The Golden Glove award in the FKF Women's Premier League was shared between Judith Osimbo of Ulinzi Starlets and Sophy Akinyi of Vihiga Queens, who recorded 10 clean sheets. In the FKF Premier League, Gor Mahia custodian Kevin Omondi achieved 21 clean sheets, securing the Golden Glove.
Josephine Wanjiku and Dickens Mimisa were honoured with the FKF Women Premier League and FKF Premier League Referee of the Year awards, respectively. Tusker, who finished the season second behind Gor Mahia, and Vihiga Queens were recognised with the social media of the Year awards for their respective leagues, while Kisii-based Shabana FC and Vihiga Queens were awarded the Fair Play Awards.
Junior Starlets head coach Mildred Cheche received the President’s Award for her exceptional leadership in guiding her team to Kenya’s first World Cup appearance in football.
Kenya’s World Cup Qualification Deserved a Gala Night
Mwendwa did not hesitate to speak about the success of the U17 women national team, who became the first from Kenya to qualify for a World Cup tournament.
The Starlets under Mildred Cheche qualified for the 2024 FIFA women’s World Cup scheduled for the Dominican Republic from October 16th to November 3rd after their 5-0 aggregate win against Burundi in the final round of the qualifiers.
The Starlets, who will be based at Santiago de los Caballeros, the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic and the fourth-largest city in the Caribbean by population, will kick off their campaign with a fixture against England at Cibao FC Stadium on October 17th, 2024.
They will return to action for their second fixture against North Korea on October 20th, before winding up their preliminary matches against Mexico on October 23rd at Felix Sanchez Olympic Stadium.
For the first time we are heading to the World Cup, this is huge news, that in itself deserves a Gala night, I am very excited because we are showing these to football people, people who are interested in knowing where the Kenyan game is.
Nick Mwendwa
FKF Expects Kenya to Qualify for Morocco AFCON
The FKF boss revealed the reasons why the federation was confident of Harambee Stars qualifying for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Morocco.
Harambee Stars, who are pooled in Group J alongside Cameroon, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, did not participate in the 2023 qualifiers after they were kicked out by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) following an indefinite suspension that had been slapped on them by the World governing body FIFA for alleged government interference.
Asked of Kenya’s chances to qualify from the group, Mwendwa said: “Look our national team Harambee Stars has not lost a match this year, and these is because of FKF’s focus on the game and efforts on the team, and we are still improving, we can do better, and we are striving to do better.
“It is very important to qualify for AFCON, it is extremely important, we are in a group that we believe we must qualify, we expect that Harambee Stars will qualify.
“These are not those days when we say we will try to qualify, those days are gone, now we are playing good football, the way we played against Ivory Coast in the World Cup qualifiers, the way we played against all the teams in the group, we expect that Harambee Stars will qualify for AFCON in Morocco.”
Mwendwa, however, confirmed Kenya will not play their home matches at home because the only venue that could have hosted the matches – Nyayo Stadium – will be undergoing renovation in readiness to host African Nations Champions (CHAN) and the 2027 AFCON.
“That expectation wasn’t there before but the only thing is that we may not play at Nyayo Stadium because now CAF is saying they want to host (CHAN) in Kenya and one other country, that is what am hearing, nor formal yet and they (CAF) have requested we close the venue for a few renovation works,” said Mwendwa.
“We have approval for Gor Mahia and Kenya Police to play their CAF inter-cub competition matches at Nyayo after which we will close Nyayo, we will get rid of the playing surface completely, we have told the Ministry of Sports about what CAF wants and they are beginning to do it, and therefore, we will prepare Nyayo for another four to five months, to host CHAN next year.”
Kenya have participated in the AFCON six times, the first being in 1972. Their last appearance came in 2019, during the 32nd edition of the tournament, where they finished third in Group C which also had Algeria, Senegal, and Tanzania.
Harambee Stars lost their opener 2-0 against Algeria, recovered to beat neighbours Taifa Stars 3-2 before losing 3-0 against the Lions of Teranga to exit at the group stage.
Kenyan Referees Doing a Great Job
Despite several complaints from top-flight clubs on poor officiating, Mwendwa defended referees for their job saying they had done their best during the 2023/24 season.
“Most of the clubs making complaints on officiating are those that had lost a match, did you ever hear any club complain after winning a match? Ask those clubs why the noise of poor officiating is heard whenever they lose a game,” said Mwendwa.
“We are not in a position to discuss refereeing now, the men in back did a good job, I repeat, all those clubs coming to us with complaints, they do it especially when they lose. If the clubs want to be fair, let them come to us also when they win a game so that we can see the difference.
“Referees training every season for their grade to reach the FIFA high standards required, these now have become automated.
They receive what they are supposed to get, they get the highest training, there is no biasness, there is nothing if you make it, then you make it, but you have to work.”
On the training of coaches, Mwendwa said: “Look at what we have achieved in training coaches, 8, 000 coaches trained over six years, CAF A, CAF B, CAF C, CAF D, every coach’s dream now is to attain a CAF qualification license from FKF, when you go to grassroot that is what every coach wants to do.”
Dennis is a seasoned journalist in Kenya with over 18 years of experience. Having started his career at Kenya Times Newspaper, Dennis worked for Standard Newspaper for nearly six years as a Sports Writer. At Standard, he was privileged to cover Kenya's national team Harambee Stars outside the country, the biggest of all being the Four Nations tournament in Cairo, Egypt. He also covered the U17 team in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.