Kakamega Homeboyz chairman Cleophas Shimanyula claims that a lot of matches in the Kenyan Premier League are being fixed.
This comes in the wake of Tuesday’s decision by FIFA to ban four players from football for four years and lifetime over match manipulation that rocked Kakamega Homeboyz in 2019.
Moses Chikati who turns out for Kakamega Homeboyz, Festo Omukoto now with Western Stima and Festus Okiring who has since joined the military were each handed a four-year ban for involvement in match-fixing. Ugandan George Mandela was banned for life.
Shimanyula sympathizes with the affected players but says action ad to be taken to prevent any such incidents from happening in the future.
“I sympathize with these players because their careers have been ended. Four years is a long time in football and looking at their ages they may have to retire from football altogether,” he said. “In as much as what has happened is sad, we needed to weed out this problem and such action from FIFA will scare others thinking of engaging in the same,” he added.
Shimanyula further claimed that vice is deeply rooted in our league and that more needs to be done to weed out the problem completely.
“Many matches are being fixed in our league and we need to do more to end this issue. I know people engaging in this and as stakeholders, we need to put our hands together to ensure that we bring this to an end because it’s ruining football in this country,” he added.
He went on to urge Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to look into the issue and act accordingly in order to save the game.
“When I raised the alarm FKF never took my claims with the seriousness it deserved. FIFA has proved that we were right, FKF needs to do more to ensure our game is clean,” he added.