Sports betting is one of the worst things that happened in Kenya in the past five years. In fact, it is another form of terrorism, maybe worse than Al Shabaab.
Everywhere you go, even in the remotest of villagers, you will find people trying to place a bet. These betting firms have made a fortune from desperate and greedy Kenyans who want to become millionaires instantly. One of my friends jumped to his suicide after he had bet with all his college fees. Unfortunately, he is not the last one to die from this menace.
There is something in betting called fixed matches. This where the outcome of a match is already pre-determined and a few individuals stake huge amounts of money on these games.
Match fixing is a criminal offense. It is prevalent in Eastern Europe. There have been several investigations into these scandals by interpol and FIFA. Yesterday, it came as a shocker that some Kenyan Premier League matches are being fixed. This is so unfortunate, coming at a time when we want to grow local football.
Paul Nkata, the former coach of KPL side Kakamega Homeboyz has gone AWOL after allegations that he had been paying his players with huge junks of money to lose matches. It is believed that the coach co-owns one of the local betting companies.
Allegedly a coach caught using his players for match fixing. New frontier in Kenyan footall ! We have to up our game now in ensuring we deal with it. Eish ! More updates to come !!
— Nick Mwendwa (@Nmwendwa) January 29, 2019
Homeboyz chairman Cleophas Shimanyula said the club management started investigating after the scheme leaked that eight players including first team goalkeeper had allegedly received Sh50,000 each to lose their match against Sony Sugar in Awendo by over four goals. They were to be paid another Sh200,000 if they attained the results but this never materialised as they lost the encounter 2-1.
“During the match, we were shocked when none of the players celebrated our two goals and to make matters worse, one of our defenders scored a classic goal in our own goal,” he added, claiming that Nkata had eight players in his scheme and all were in the first 11. He said together with the team management, they decided to set a trap and pushed two players to accept to join the scheme during our match against Mathare United.