Twenty-four African countries are already in Cameroon for the biennial ritual of stopping their opponents from kicking the ball past the goal line, and showing the world that we also have electricity in Africa.
Beginning tomorrow for the next three weeks, football fans from all over the world will be glued to their screens waiting for someone to switch off the stadium lights while the match is still on so that European clubs can send private jets to evacuate their players back to their glittering leagues.
If the Confederation of African Football (Caf) manages to see off the bad press to the end, the winner will have to contend with the rare honour of touching a gold plate with their bare hands, because the tournament’s prize money is still not enough to even revive Mumias Sugar.
In the interest of fair play and giving a chance to those who’ve never been to Afcon before, Kenya chose to stay at home for this year’s edition and focus on other professional areas we’re competent at; like competing with rodents in the gnawing of public funds, and swinging our forearms in Parliament hoping to catch the Speaker’s eye and embarrass our children on national television.
We couldn’t have been prouder of our national football team, Harambee Stars – who God sent to remind Kenyans to lower their expectations from their government – for going to the last Afcon edition and abiding by the holy teachings to give out points to teams who desperately needed them for their fans back home.
Human face of football
For being generous to a fault, the organisers have denied Harambee Stars the chance to show the world the human face of football once again, but we can neither confirm nor deny the unkind gesture will deter Harambee Stars from helping those who’ll need our points in the future.
You would’ve expected Kenyans to be praised for being unselfish with their goals, but this Godly mission has seen us being ridiculed by football fans from other countries. They say our footballers are in the wrong profession and the government should consider rebranding the national football team into a humanitarian organisation.
The rebranding process had reached the final stages, which saw the Football Kenya Federation President announcing he no longer saw any football talent in Kenya.
Just when we had thought Harambee Stars had finally discovered their calling to serve the country in another capacity, the Sports minister sent police to ask the guy why he had requisitioned for money to tap football talent when all he ended up tapping was his mouth on the microphone. He’s now out of the football limelight, thus denying the country the much-needed comical relief that accompanied his running mouth.
Our love for mediocrity
We’re now back to the era when football fans in Kenya picked fights over which African team is the best. You’d think the world map has since been redrawn and Kenya placed in Europe.
It’s understandable not to love Harambee Stars. They joined forces with mosquitoes to keep us awake, emulated Jubilee in making promises they couldn’t keep, and spent taxpayers’ money giving us false hope when we could’ve used the cash to fight ignorance, poverty and election thieves.
When Kenyans said they love mediocrity, we didn’t expect Harambee Stars to practise it without our express permission.
Anyone who doesn’t have a licence to be mediocre is denying the country the much-needed tax revenue to offset our backbreaking international loans, and any Kenyan who comes across such people is required to notify the Kenya Revenue Authority with immediate effect.
It can’t be right that some people are paid to be mediocre while others are punished for it. BY DAILY NATION