What about the media? Are they to blame?

In all honesty, Kenya Football is in a real mess. The KFF is inefficient, corrupt and lethargic; the government is insensitive, inconsiderate and interferes with football resulting in unsolicited and unwanted outcomes; and the fans don't show up for games. Could things get any worse? Yes. There's a fourth player in the let's-ruin-our-football game. What about the Fourth Estate?

In a perfect world, the media would actively participate in the resurrection of our soccer. They would bring back the passion for local football by highlighting the good aspects of our game all the time (or even at least as much as they highlight the foreign football leagues). They would make any football loving Kenyan want to go and watch local matches just by talking about our football in a positive way. They would cover every match, publish pictures, show us short clips of matches on TV, and generally make us feel envious at how much fun it was watching a certain game live. AND albeit the local premier league is dead, there's still good football out there – the ongoing Super 8 Soccer tournament being one of them – so the excuse that local football doesn't warrant the media's attention is just hogwash.

But this is not a perfect world. In actual fact, our media pays little or no attention to our local game. That's why a leading daily newspaper can publish plainly wrong facts and not even offer a simple apology. This week, the Nation had the audacity to claim that the Super 8 Soccer tournament was in the quarter final stage – clearly not true!. The fact that that story was published clearly shows that no research went into the story and the editor didn't even bother to check the facts. Scandalous! If that was not bad enough, I have seen with my own two eyes journalists (names withheld) asleep or busy with their newspapers, books and whatnot at a soccer game that they are supposedly being paid to cover. The straw that breaks the camel's back, however, is the shocking fact that journalists take bribes to take sides in the local football chaos. I blame the media for everything wrong with our football.

I believe that blogs like this one are also part of the media and so in blaming the media I blame myself also. We can do so much more to build our football!

---