Lapasset was a tried and tested friend of Kenya’s rugby growth

 

By 2011 Kenya Sevens had become the flagship of the Kenyan rugby game. The team went on to reach the semi-finals of the 2013 Rugby Sevens World Cup in Moscow. The rise excited the whole world including the chairman of World Rugby Bernard Lapasset who passed  on  Wednesday.

During this period, I was the chairman of the Kenya Rugby Union and came to having a personal, wonderful understanding of Lapasset, an outstanding inspiration of the spread of the game to smaller nations round the world.

 The Frenchman had already shown love for and confidence in Kenya when he influenced the 2009 Junior World Rugby Trophy to be hosted in Nairobi. He attended the tournament and even had time to  visit downtown Nairobi Railway Club to see the hard, scrawny ground where Mwamba RFC trained that had produced some of the finest players in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series ,the likes of  Collins Injera, Humphrey Kayange, Lavin Asego, Horace Otieno, Victor ‘Opong’ Oduor, and George Mbaye.
 Lapasset invited me to address the then International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) 2014 General Assembly in Dublin, Ireland.  It was his unprecedented, deliberate move to showcase to the world how a small rugby playing nation like Kenya had built a world class sevens rugby team. His own words were: “Kenya must be doing something right.”
 We had earlier taken advantage of our eminent recognition to now place Kenya’s bid to be included in the hosting of future rounds of the World Rugby Sevens Series. This had grown into a serious intent as our sponsors saw a realistic chance of attracting this glorious series to our country and we got the full backing of Safaricom, Kenya Airways, Coca Cola, East African Breweries, the Government of Kenya and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s personal guarantee.
But the terror attack at Westgate Mall, Nairobi in the middle of the Safari Sevens tournament in September 2013,  put paid to that dream of hosting a World Rugby Sevens Series leg.
In appreciation of one of the biggest supporters of the Kenyan bid, Lapasset, this dream should not die.
   Lapasset was a true friend who would introduce me to everyone in his enclosure emphasizing love and admiration for Kenya as his pin-up model of his goal of expansion of the rugby game as wide as possible in the world.  Rest in eternal peace, Bernard Lapasset.
Muthee is a former chairman of the Kenya Rugby Union    BY DAILY NATION