If Pele, who will be interred Tuesday in Brazil, left Nairobi a disappointed man in 1976 after his bangled visit was snubbed by the Kenya Football Federation (KFF), he was all smiles, ever helpful and welcoming to a group of Kenyan youth aged 16 and below from Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) who attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.
Pele refunded the Kenya team’s air fares and ground costs of their stay in Rio de Janeiro and offered to educate the team’s captain and his vice, Francis Kimanzi and Maurice Wambua, for free in order for them to pursue long-term football careers in Brazil, considered the Mecca of football in the world, after watching them in action during the Eco ’92 Youth Games during the Earth Summit.
The games were organised by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the “Earth Summit”, in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992, as part of the conference.
MYSA youth attended in their capacity as recipients of the 1992 United Nations Environment (UNEP) Global 500 for their conservation efforts by cleaning up exercises in Mathare slum through sports.
Seeds of his efforts
Pele was always with the team, perhaps happy to see the seeds of his efforts of 1976 of having a strong youth football programme germinate to fruition in Kenya.
He was one of the organisers of the Eco ’92 Youth Programme through his Pele Marketing Consultancy firm.
The football king was so impressed by the Mathare football team’s depth of talent after watching them overrun Brazilian teams that at the end, he confessed that they reminded him of his playing days.
“Your boys play football the way Brazil used to play,” Pele told the head of the Kenyan delegation Bob Munro in reference to the once famed Brazilian Total Football beautiful game of the 60s through 80s.
MYSA had within five years emerged as the best example of what sports can achieve to solve many problems afflicting mankind in the lead up to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global 500 Award for using its football programme to clean up the sprawling Mathare slums.
Munro recalled the visit as “historic.” The Kenyan delegation left Nairobi quietly but was received in Rio like a visiting rock stars as the UNEP Global 500 Award winners.
Munro has been the backbone of the team. Besides representing MYSA in Brazil, he was an adviser to Maurice Strong, the Secretary General for the Global UN Earth Summit Conference.
At the same time, he was also serving as the Senior Policy Adviser to the Nigerian delegation to the UN Earth Summit.
“We got to Brazil as winners of the UNEP Global 500 Environment Prize because all MYSA teams were playing and also clearing garbage and blocked drainage ditches in the Mathare slums.
“And for each completed garbage clean-up project, a team earned three points in the league standings.
“That is why and how MYSA became the global pioneers for the now worldwide sport for development and peace movement,” he said.
“As it was then already 9-10 pm in Nairobi when we arrived in Brazil, our players had spent the last one and a half days travelling were jet-lagged.
“I told them in the first match that we came here to learn so they shouldn’t worry about the score,” recalled Munro Monday in a telephone conversation.
Pele sat on the Kenyan side as in all workshops and followed the match pitting the Kenyans against a Brazilian side from a slum area with keen interest.
The Kenyan youth were in a class of their own and had other intentions more than just being mesmerised by a new environment.
“When the match started, the whole team was in the zone own, all playing at a high tempo with short and perfect passes and dominated the Brazilian team for 90 minutes,” recalled Munro.
“After scoring our second goal in the first half, Pelé (with the assistance of an interpreter), instead of being disappointed, was actually happy to see such exciting football and turned to me and said: ‘Your boys play football the way Brazil used to play!’
“We won the next three matches and won the tournament against five different Brazilian youth teams, including the last 3-2.
“Pele presented Wambua with the Eco’ 92 Certificate and invited him and Kimanzi to remain behind and pursue an education and football career. But I guess they were already home sick and under age to understand the meaning of this offer,” said Munro.
Kimanzi’s brilliant career ended in coaching Harambee Stars in 2008, and in only five months, Kenya rose from 120th to 68th in the Fifa World Rankings.
As for Wambua, in 1999 he was the first MYSA and Mathare United Football Club player to go to the USA on a football scholarship and is now a lecturer of mathematics at Kenyon College in Ohio.
MYSA’s story has been well documented.
The organisation had slowly, but gradually ballooned from a group of eager teenagers who decided not to be sucked into childhood drug abuse, prostitution and crime of Mathare infamy by engaging in football activities which was turned into an organised programme of international recognition. BY DAILY NATION