 Welcome back to the touchline here on Y-254. I'm Robert Osoro. It has been a big week when it comes to sports events. There have been council left, right and centre here in the world. But the first one in the country now to council the entire season is the Kenya rugby union. And to explain that to us live is the chairman Kenya rugby union, Odwar Gangla here to talk to us about that. Mr Chairman, welcome to Y-254. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in normal circumstances, you could be here in studio with us. But today because of technology, we can find you at home. What are you doing? I'm Robert Osoro. Yes, I think it's important to observe the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and WHO so that this virus can be extinguished. How are you feeling? Are you safe where you are? You can tell us about that. Yes, I'm on self quarantine at home. It's just me and my family. So, Saturday is always a rugby day. We spend a lot of time out meeting people, enjoying games and just catching up with friends and family and the like. It's not been possible. I think for us now, this is probably a full month since we cancelled, we suspended the league. If you think about it, our league was not the climax. We have had the Kenya Cup final last weekend. This weekend actually, we are normally in Nakurova, Easter for the Grand Drift Valetana side, which is a very nice tournament. And then next weekend we have had the Enterprise Cup. But also next weekend on 19th, we have had Kenya women playing Colombia at the RFU. Yes, they just machi in the country. And then on Sunday 19th, we have had the start of the Bethes Cup, the under 20 Africa competition of which we are the defending champions. So, we've seen enormous disruption in our calendar and activity for the year. And also with these disruptions, there are a lot of consequences, especially commercial partners with sponsors. And we then have to reorganize ourselves to fit into the new world order, if I can call it that. We received your statement on Thursday actually that you have cancelled the league altogether. What does this mean for Kenya rugby union now that the league has been cancelled all through the season? Let's take a step back. We were to have our playoffs and conclude our season next weekend. The 18th of April was the last day in the season because we started in July and we ran up to April. So, the timing for our season has actually come to an end. Now, what triggered the decision is if you look at what's happening in Kenya today, I think there's been a spike in the number of incidences. We've also seen all the advisories from the government that we are looking at a situation where the situation is likely to get worse. If you look at what's happening in all the other countries and that's why there's a lot of activity around preparedness. I've seen several counties putting together facilities. Government is going to start mass testing I think next week. We've seen breakthroughs from Chemri. So, the question really is when do you play these playoffs? No one knows when the corona is going to come to an end. And our season from our timing point of view has come to an end. If we also look at what other federations have done in the international federations, people postpone to a particular window. So, if you look at the Olympics, they postpone it by a year to next year. If you look at World Rugby, the 7 series, the tentative dates are in September. And again, they've been pushed to September because in September there's no World Rugby competition happening. It's normally the off season time then we're preparing for the next year. So, they've pushed it then. In our case, our off season is from April and we start the new season in July. The other thing which we have to be cognizant about under the KRU regulations because of player welfare and safety, we have a mandatory four week rest period after the season. And then we have again in the regulations an eight week period for pre season. Now, we've already taken the four week, I mean people have been offered before four weeks. And then we do some exercises at home to see but we can assume they've had their rest. So, even if this corona thing is sorted, we still need to give the teams that period to get ready so that they can claim. We cannot also take a risk and tell people go play the playoffs when they're not in the body condition to do so. I think it will be very responsible of us as the union. So, guided by our regulations around how our season can move, knowing what's important from a player welfare point of view. And just looking at the timeline, we then say look, also the clubs have been asking us what's going to happen. The media, the sponsors and even the options that eventually came to the board were options which have been discussed because there are not that many options. You either say this has been a bad year. It's like when we had the world war, during the world war II, rugby was not played. It's not different. It's not been played anyway. It's also not been played today. So, do you want to hold on to this season and then create a backlog of fixtures for the coming year, which is for us starting in July. So, let's look at our scenario. If in July we're not able to play the seven circuit, we'll make exactly the same decision and then we say now let's wait. If in September we play, then you play the fixtures that you supposed to play in September and I'll explain to you what people don't understand. We have a global calendar of when we play our matches, whether it's Kenya 50s or Kenya 7s. And our season fits into that global calendar. And nothing has changed in that global calendar. So, everyone is hoping things will normalize maybe later in the year. So, the moment our season ends, in May Kenya 7s was to start playing. All the other players take a break and we have our internationals because that's the win. So, we have to make an assumption that may of next year we will be playing Kenya internationals. Then we work backwards from May of last year and say when we want the season to end, then if you say this is when the season needs to end, then we must start again our season this year in October 15 aside. We build the 7s between July and September to help us choose a team which then goes into the world series which starts in November. So, there's actually a methodology to the timeshift. So, you cannot just say we hold on to the league and wait at the infinitum until whatever. So, even July we can't play rugby in all likelihood, we won't have the 7s circuit. If in September we cannot start, I mean October we can't start Kenya Cup which will be very unfortunate. The decision is the same. It's just that the win of this will play in this season's championship in our view is complete. Question which I was going to ask you about the calendar and you have actually put it right there according to the methodology and everything. What I want also our viewers to understand is your partners, you are the people who are actually directly in contact with your partners in the marketing, your partners will give the sponsors and everything. For them, how did they take this decision so far? Because it is not only rugby which is affected, also them they are affected directly or indirectly. Yes, we've been in consultation with our sponsors and we are because we work with them. And today everyone is thinking about survival. And everyone is going to avoid anything that goes contrary to the WHO regular guidance on how to manage corona. It's a responsible thing to do. So, given that case, we don't really have too many options. Two, a sponsor sponsors you because you have activities. They put money so that they can derive commercial benefit from those activities. When you don't have activities, then that money doesn't flow. I was just calculating the impact of say something like but there's not happening. We are sitting for KRU. It's a very significant financial loss for us as well as the union because the partners who we have negotiated with to commit are not going to release that money to us. So, it's very difficult but I think all sponsors say as soon as things normalize then we have to relook at the situation. So, the choice we had was why they say because the time has elapsed, let's kill this 2019-2020 season. And then we start afresh. We hope we can start in July if things improve. That will be for the 7th packet and then we move on to the 15th. Let me put your background. I understand you are an investment banker before you came into the rugby circles and took over with running of rugby and everything. And when you look all over the world, sports is one industry that has been affected the most. In your perspective, in your view from where you are at the moment, many people have talked to is they cannot quantify the losses that we have lost as an industry in sports all over the world. Just put a little bit of perspective in that worldwide the sports industry. How has it been impacted by this pandemic? That's very significant losses. I'm not actually run through the numbers, but I'll just give you the carry case. We're looking at Bethes Cup with roughly committed income of about 50 million shillings, which was committed whether it's government, rugby or freak, other commercial sponsors. That's one event, eight days. 50 million of revenue. We're going to host about 280 players from African countries because eight teams are supposed to come plus the rugby executive. Rugby Africa executive was actually coming to have their board meeting in Nairobi. So then you look at from the 50 million, maybe the expenses would come to about 40, 42 million, which would then go back into the economy. Because these guys have to stay somewhere, they have to travel, they have to eat. So there's a multiply effect from that. And then we're looking at retaining some money from managing the event because also you have gains revenue, you have the food and beverage sales. So out of that opportunity, it's a significant revenue loss for us because if you look at it, it's isn't 25% of our annual revenue and we think this thing would be as big as say as a 47 for us. So now if you go to something like say Premier League internationally, I think the impact is bigger because the TV rights running to billions of dollars. I think it's six or seven billion dollars a year. That's just TV. Then if you look, they have much the revenue, they have much andizing revenue. They have their sponsors. I mean, so easily just English Premier League must be an ecosystem of about 15, 20, maybe 20 billion dollars a year. Now the thing has stopped. Then look at an industry like say betting. Even here in Kenya, you see how betting is based on international football, especially EPL and some of our partners are betting companies. So immediately people are not making odds, so that has also stopped and you can go on and on and on. So the impact is very, very significant. I'm not even counting the clubs because you see the clubs pay for themselves to come to events CTC and some of them have budgets of 30 million, some 3-4 million. So it's a huge loss. But look, this is an act of God. We had planned to be in Kamega last week, Nakulu this week and then Nairobi next week for the international. There's really nothing we can do. So the conversation with you is we saw in Belgium they actually set up president where they stopped the league at where it is and handed the trophy to Club Brug. You are now the champions at the moment. And now for you here in the country, you are the first sports federation to come out and say that, hey, for us we have cancelled the entire season. So what advice can you give to the other federation because I know even them, they are in the same situation where you are and arrived into this decision? Okay, first maybe let me just clarify. The league has been played up to the end of the Karekulit run-robin stage. What was left was the playoffs. Now all the results up to the run-robin result still stand. And we'll even use them next year when it comes to seeding and things like those. Now if you look at the situation of Club Brug is very different because I think mathematically I don't think any other team would have caught up with them and they were using a straight-league format. I also think in the case of Liverpool, I don't want maybe two games, it will be very difficult to say you can declare them champions because no one would have caught up with them. But our format is very different because our winner is determined through a competitive match because we have a final, we have a semi-final and I'll give you some history. Last year Kabras was number one in the regular season, Kabras Sugar. But then they lost in the final, yet they had a home advantage. If you look at the guys who are promoted in the championship to come to Kenya Cup, Kisumu finished number five in the round-robin. I think Western Boats finished number three but they came and both of them won their semi-finals and that's how they got promoted. So it is not automatic that if you are number one and two in the championship you should be promoted. So that was the dilemma which we sort of were dealing with. Then the other thing is do you start the next season in 2021? And you're also still having pending issues of 2019-2020 yet something which is also the control of the union. You don't even know what's going to happen next. So we didn't want a situation where maybe things normalize in December. Then now we're saying let's finish this season, then we start, then it just becomes messy. So we just say there's events are unable to be held. We move on to the next one and then we'll resume when we can resume. Thank you for coming here on board to talk to us about the cancellation of the league, in particular the Kenya rugby league so far. Stay safe Mr. Chairman. You go to public places where your mask is two meters away from whoever you're talking to and let's just spend that time working with our families at home. And follow me there, still keep faith if you can. It's important. Thank you. We have been talking to the president, the chairman, rather Kenya rugby union and he has been speaking to us about the decision that they took there about the cancellation of the league in particular. But what are the NBA stars doing during this coronavirus pandemic? Because at the moment everybody is all about staying at home. Some contacted the virus and they are recovering. Some are staying in quarantine but all the players of the NBA are at home. What are they doing? Let's watch. When we come back we'll be looking at the fund.