Gor Mahia will be hosting Kariobangi Sharks in Kisumu tomorrow (Wednesday) in a league match at Moi stadium.
The match was previously scheduled to be played in Machakos but the club decided to switch the venue after considering a number of factors as confirmed by the club’s chairman Ambrose Rachier.
The chairman said that Kisumu makes a lot of sense for a mid-week match because fans attend matches in good numbers which translate to some good revenues from ticket sales as well as offering the necessary support.
“It’s a mid-week match and from our experience with such matches, fans do attend matches in good numbers in Kisumu as opposed to Machakos where we can only witness good attendance during weekend matches. It’s all about numbers which we consider to be vital in offering needed support and revenues from ticket sales,” chairman Rachier told the official Gor Mahia website.
Gor Mahia trained in Nairobi today and the will be hitting run-way to Kisumu on Wednesday morning, play the match and come back in the evening – a program that Rachier admits is hectic and costly.
“With a tight schedule in store for us, we have to really work hard and do what it takes to make our players comfortable. They just landed from Tanzania on Monday, trained on Tuesday and the most appropriate and comfortable means to Kisumu is a flight which we will do on Wednesday morning and come back the same day after the match. It’s hectic and expensive but that’s what it is,” he added.
The match will kick off at 3pm and tickets will be available as early as mid-morning as confirmed by Gor Mahia treasurer Sally Bolo.
“We have the tickets for tomorrow’s match ready. We will maintain our prices at Sh 500 for VIP tickets while terraces tickets will be going for Sh 200. The tickets will be available around the stadium as from 10am,” Bolo stated.
Gor Mahia will be hoping to extend their lead at the top after pulling a convincing win over Young Africans of Tanzania over the weekend.
The month of August will be a squeezed one for Gor Mahia as there are a total of ten(10) matches lined up in just a space of 28 days – two of which are continental matches.
To kick off the busy month, Gor Mahia will be hosting Kariobangi Shakrs in a league match in Kisumu on Wednesday. The match is coming just two days after the league leaders were involved in a continental assignment in Tanzania where they convincingly beat Young Africans 3-2 in a Group D Caf Confederation match.
Rachier said that they understand the reason for the tight fixtures but he indicated two elements that will most likely come out of it – injuries and financial burden.
“We truly understand the reason behind the crowded fixtures for the month of August… As per Caf requirement, the local league must end by October 7th and so, quite a number of matches must be played before or by then to comply with the new universal plan that is to kick off in December.”
“As a result of trying to get those matches played in good time, we are at a risk of getting more injuries, players will be over stretched and will not have enough time to recover say from fatigue or injuries. We already have some injuries,’’ the chairman told the official Gor Mahia website.
Adding to chairman’s comment, club’s CEO Lordvick Aduda said that it’s their hope no setbacks will be experienced in the tight month. “We for sure have many matches lined up and to beat the Caf deadline date of submitting names of Champions by end of October, we have no excuse but to play all those matches. We just hope we will not get injuries along the way and the head coach will be able to use the available players to achieve the best,” said Aduda.
Not injuries alone are a worry to chairman Rachier, the financial bit that will go into planning and navigating through the tight August fixtures was clearly outlined.
“Honouring matches comes with a huge cost. It’s not always easy to go about fixtures more-so when we have to move from town to town like we will be doing in this coming month. It’s so expensive and it will be a big burden to club. It’s inevitable and we hope we will pull it through because again, other than just honouring matches, we want good results and that can only come when players are comfortable and are in the right condition which takes us back to finances,” he added.