 zak o goda in this conversation, zaks. Welcome to A250. It's not your first time coming on to why, but this time round you have come here to talk about your book away from victory. Thanks, Robert, for having me. It's true. This was my first time here. I've taken a bit long, another long, but due to commitments here and there, I haven't been able to visit your show the more times I would have liked to, but I'm glad that finally I'm back here and back with good things and greater things that we might want to inform the viewers and the other person about. Let's go ahead and talk about this book away from victory, Pain, Politics and Privilege in Kenyan Football. That is the cover of the book away from victory. What does the book entail when you... Let's start with the title itself, away from victory. What did you entail in the book? Away from victory itself, without putting the rest of the things that you said, away from victory itself came from the journey we've taken that this being an Afghan year. It's like we've taken 15 years to make it to Afghan. So away from victory, a lot of people have been celebrating the victory of us going to Afghan, but there are a lot of things that have happened apart from the victory. So we need in the book, I focused on things that pertain, things that are not in the victory itself, but things that are away from the victory. That's basically it. So in the pain, politics and privilege in Kenyan football, that's when I talk about things that have not made us be at power with the rest on the continent. We are a footballing nation and every other person feels like we should always be competing with the best in the continent, but the 15-year gap, there are a lot of things that happened in between. So most of those things entail in the book. So this made a book since 2004 to 2018? Ya, but in the book itself, you have had major chapters that you have written in the book and one of them you'll have to explain to us and understand it is rewarding the lieutenants. That's your first chapter in the book. It is about kickbacks in the game and as everything happens in the game, or how do you frame that in the book? That's chapter one of the book, rewarding lieutenants. It's not about kickbacks and every other thing. You find that in every other Afghans quote that we had, that was in 2004 and this year. People ask question why is so-and-so in the team, why is so-and-so not in the team. You find out that there are a lot of people who are in the team because of the association with the guys in power. When you look at 2004, when you went to Tunisia for Afghans, there are a lot of questions where people asked coach Jakob Ghostmule why he had failed Daniel Waweru who had a neck injury to the competition when there were a lot of players who could have done better than Waweru. That's reflected in the current team where you find someone like Masut Jumu who's not played for the past six months getting a nod ahead of people like Alan Wanga and Jesse Waweru. So that's in a way is a rewarding guys who are closer to the federation. So that's the rewarding lieutenants. They are not there because of merit. Yes. So they are being rewarded. Wow, that's a very big answer that you have got there because it has been a big conversation in the country for a very long time that we are getting, the coach cannot select a lineup himself with this technical bench. The lineup has to come from the office. But it has not happened only in the national team also in football clubs. Yes. It's something generally, for me I wanted to concentrate on the national team because now that's the major thing about every other person who plays even in the national super league, the kind of primarily given the division one, every other person strive to play for the national team. So the road has to start up there. We have to speak about the road up there. Then maybe we might want to reflect the things that happen at the top with the things that happen at club level. Well, that's a big one there that we are going to talk about. But then there's the big one, Harambe Stars. I usually have the idea that we are not a big footballing nation since when we made it into the Africa Cup of Nations back in 72. For the five editions that we played in the Africa Cup of Nations reserve, the one that we are going to play this, we have only won one match. We have never got out of the group stage of the competitions that people talk about here at home. The only competition we are proud of is the Saqafa Senior Challenge Cup. Am I right? Am I wrong? Ah, you're right. You're right. You see, for someone who's worked or for someone who's traveled even in this overseas country, we're known as an athletic country, not a footballing nation, something of that sort. But for me, I think at times it's just a perception and how we run things. You see, we have a lot of talented guys who can play football just as the same as we have a lot of talented guys who can do athletics. So the problem here is the systems that are in football, they don't favor the footballers or any aspiring person. So the thing that we have to do is to find the right guys at the help of our ambassadors as in chapter two. I've talked about coaches who at times are just being placed because of the transition or every other thing. You look like someone like Okumbi when Nick Mundo came into power. We just had to do with Bob Williamson without being given any reasons why the man was going out and then gave us Okumbi. Okumbi didn't even last. We had Poliput, Poliput barely lasted. Now we have Minye. So these are things that, I mean, jeopardizes that free flow of I think cohesion. You can't just pick someone today then pick someone tomorrow. I mean, it's a bit of this orientation in a way and that affects football in a so so so much. What do you think changed in the way you have written the book? We took 15 years to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nation. In 72 when we qualified for the first time until the second edition in 88 we took another 16 good years to qualify and that at the middle there they brought things like the Olympic youth centers. What do you think has been the major problem for us not making it to be a powerhouse in football? It's a company. I'll say I won't blame any individual, any specific individual. I think it's a collection of things. You find out that, I think the budget was read the other day. You find the money they give to sports. It's not something you might want to be proud of as a sportsman. And the mind has given again, you find again in the federation, they make it even worse. The little they get specifically in the previous federation, I want to believe that the current federation has done a bit well the money they've been given. But when you look at the money that was given in the Samnyamwe era, you couldn't well define where how they used the money because Nick says he entered the federation, found into a lot of debt. So you wonder what happened. So it basically duels with the leaders we have in football. I don't think they're doing the right things for us to grow. For the leaders in football, do you think the level of education is a worry? Because when you look at since independence, not only in Kenya, but most of the countries in Africa, people leaders got themselves in situations which they never knew what was happening. We had people coming into football management, not knowing what football management entails. They did not go to school to learn football. They never played football, but they were there to manage the club. Up to today, we've got club president, club chairman who run football, yet they don't understand football. Do you think it's a curse to us that these people never went to school and do not understand sports? It's not a curse as per se. I think I'd given that a chapter, but let me just touch on it. You see people come to football with different aims. People are wanting to football, to make football great the way the guys in England do. I had even proposed that it's better we even had a private entity in football. You see like the English affairs are private entity. For a private entity, you have to work to another contract. So you see in football people come with different ideas mostly for political reasons. When you look at people like Peter Kenneth, Jobomino, Nyamue at some point, you wanted to vie for governorship or any other thing, there's a rumani might want to vie for a political seat in the coming future. I don't know how true that is, but people come to football with a lot of different reasons than football itself that is there. So I think if that's going to be sorted and I've spoken about that in football and politics, there's a chapter on it. That's actually the ninth chapter. Yes, I think that will say a lot about every other thing that's wrong with our leadership in football. Mwa so one of our major biggest clubs in the country, but before we get there, you have a chapter on us and that's the meaning. Where have we gone before we have heard it right, tell us what about us. Actually the first person who's asking me about the media since it started, people have not been asking that chapter. You see now they portray my book as a book that hits the federation, hits the funds, but again I've spoken about the media. I've been part of the media myself, I'm still in the media industry. You and me know there are a lot of things that happen in the media industry. You see this book alone, I don't think I did it for again football again. This is a book that I wanted out there to make each and every other individual who has a dream. I can't say I had the best of education in life or I had the brightest of upbringing, but this was just to encourage every other person that had a dream to do something that any other thing with ambitions, dedication. I understand you left media, you left medical school for sojournalism. Yes, so you see those are things that maybe you might feel like one or one time your partner doesn't want now to associate with you things like that because you've decided what they want and you're doing what now you want. So my aim here was to boom make guys feel that every other thing is achievable. Apart from that on the media, there are a lot of things that we do. Yes, like media now is not like the media we had in the yesteryears. You see like right now when I'm in your show and a sponsor comes, like right now he says I want my show to run from two to four. Yes, like I don't want to mention names, these corporate when they come and say I want my show to run from two to four. You won't be having me here because you see now they pay for that and see now me I can't pay for that. So whether they speak rubbish or they speak things that are not entailing the game, you have to give them the audience because at the end of the day this may be where that's how you make your money. So I've always felt like advertisers have gotten to media that much that we've lost that credibility part of it. So it happens in football, it happens even in political things not in football alone in every other places, you find out that for guys to cover like those secondary school games which don't have like sponsor or something, it's a bit of a difficulty but you find guys cover golf because the corporate is coming on board, the corporate can help the company push a thing or two. So that's what I've spoken about the media. We should stay away from these things where we force like interns or we force guys who work under us to do things because there's someone up there who say this thing should be done. For the growth of football and where Kenyan football is at the moment, do you think we have done our job as the media? Do you think we have sat down, we have gone back to our newsroom, our news desk and written objectively about Kenyan football and said even as we can set an agenda as the media? We have done our best. I hope your editor will forgive me. So we have done our best. My main problem in places that I've worked with is you find someone like you Robert should go to the field to get your good story and news of the story, something that should be consumed but every other person likes football. But when you come you find like your piece is edited in a way that you don't like, a way that you don't like it to get out there. So now that's out of your hands. So but when it goes out there it goes with Robert's name. So when people see you they say this guy is the other guy who speaks badly about the other thing. When in the real sense you might find that words are there that even you don't understand. I've worked in places where you do a certain they'll tell you that's how you can't go up because of A, B and C. This is a story that you've been sent to do somewhere but they tell you it can't go up. By the end of the month you have to pay your bills and every other thing so you just have to live with the system at some point. So for the media gave them this just to give them the urge of even with the challenges that they face in every other thing they do probably the media was for the interns and the guys who are coming. In every other challenges that they face they shouldn't give up hope. Maybe there's one day that they'll do every other thing they can actually decide. Now for you as a journalist and writing this book what kind of challenges did you go through? Did you get people talking to you one on one and saying hey let's talk. Let's put this thing into perspective and all that. How hard was it for you to write this book? I had to stop at some point. Chemilatively I think I did this book for around three years but I had to stop for some time. I think if every other person was to cooperate it might have taken less years. This is because you see when I'm coming to talk to you about your boss you might not want to talk about him. So you'll have to look for another source. Then if even you will be able to speak about the things that are happening in your places of work you won't want to be quoted. So in this book there are a lot of people who didn't want to be quoted because it touched on actually I knew it was going to rub shoulders with people but there are people who say don't reveal our names which I concealed but there are people who came out and say my friend may have nothing to lose. I have my businesses. I don't have an association with anyone. Just quote me. That's someone like Bonfa Sambani. Sambani was very categorical in this book and I liked how he did his things. My biggest challenge in every other thing the biggest challenge I had in this book was with the ladies because you see in this country the ladies football is not doing that well but out of ten ladies I pursued there's none who was willing to talk. So they couldn't get a chapter. I wish they had a chapter in the book. So the ladies are out of this book. They are out of that book. I hope I'll do for them something in the future. And then you've got a chapter on forever young. For forever young is basically it's a funny thing. During the lunch someone asked me about that. Forever young the other day you saw FKF profile their players for AFKON. Yes. Someone like Josh she find is 23 years old. This one is about age cheating. That's about age cheating. So no one wants to be old. Someone like Josh someone I wanted I started watching when I think I was in class seven because he used to play around our area down there. Yes. I'm 20 right now. The guy's 23. So I'm wondering how people count ages. Maybe using the Ethiopian calendar of the Chinese one. But age cheating has been a major problem because I remember our under 20 team was disqualified from the World Cup qualifier because of age cheating. How bad is it? It's a bad, bad thing and I think it's an African thing. I heard that even the European nation there are people who do it. But you see it's not the invader under 20 alone that you were disqualified for. Well we went for our last cover. The under 17s cover that I think was in Burundi. I think a couple of our players were disqualified for the tournament. The same happened with Uganda I think and TZ. I think it's the Somali team that was clean. The other teams had one or two players picked out because of and so when these guys go in here the foundation will tell you they've gone through the MRI scans. Yes. Everything is set. That it's you a lot. I mean if you even documents of players like someone like Paul Ware I am told during his time at his first thing that FC Leopards. Yes. He had his passport as a born 1991. Yes. But right now if you look at Paul Ware his profile in what FKF gave us. Yes. The dude is born in 1995. Wow. So that's a difference of 4 years. Yes. I want to imagine that when he wrote the 1991 thing maybe had slashed a bit of another 2-3 years. Yes. So you might find this guy has slashed his years about 7 years. Wow. So when you're going to go to Europe for a game they'll consider you like a toddler. They will see in Europe they have very different way of training groups of training. Yes. So they'll be training the kids. Yes. If they are going to give you that high intensity game then you want to make it you want to last for a lot of years and that's what has delayed our football in this country. Wow. Yes. There's a funny one there forever young but it's a big sacred that is happening there and then now there's the big giant in the room and that's the Kenyan Premier League. We have to talk about the Kenyan Premier League because that is what we majorly cover in Kenyan football. Yes. What do you talk about in the Kenyan Premier League? The Kenyan Premier League as we said earlier I think it revolves around management. Yes. And these are guys who are going to be sent home come next year. That's what FKF said. They won't be continuing with the Good and Co. If you look at the Kenyan Premier League right now I think the winner gets up to around 4 to 5 m. 4 million. 4 million. That alone can't even be a two month budget for Goldmere. Goldmere's budget is 5 million a month. A month. So I mean Good and Co are not being realistic. They haven't sold the game the way it should be. I don't know how they do their marketing strategies and every other thing and the people he has around but I think they failed the nation as a whole because you see the Kenyan Premier League is a place where we expect scouts to come. We don't expect a scout to go to a division one and watch a game unless it's referred by someone. So Kenyan Premier League with the broader actually firstly we don't have the broadcasting partner that will give us the game the way Supersport did so for that in the show but we need KPL or Good and Co to have guys around them to market our league in a way that we not only benefit the guys here but we can transport our talents overseas. That's how you want to build a national team. If you have a lot of internationals who play in those national leagues then improve the quality of the national team. You can't just speak every other player in the Kenyan Premier League to play for the national team if you want to compete with the best in Africa. Wow the Kenyan Premier League started in 2006 back in 2006 and it has been all for this time round. Marketing has been a major problem for the Kenyan Premier League. What else has been bad for them? Apart from marketing I think usually for you to attract good things you have to be good. Yes professionally in every other thing you do. When you're going to have a team that gives like three work hours even if a corporate is not in yet that will give an image of what you people are doing. Yes I mean there's no serious team in top flat league that will give three work hours. It's never happened. Secondly it's how you run your things apart from the work hours. I mean who will we go to if you want this? Who is where? That's something that I think is not well defined in KPL. You find that like in every other company that we do it's always Jaco Guda who's up. Yes when you ask Jaco Guda who is he working with I don't think so many people know about guys who work around Jaco Guda. The technocrats about the Kenyan Premier League. People don't know them. People don't know that is the club chairman who run, who majorly run the league. This is something they don't know. So there's a lot of information that they're hiding that I don't know why. If they get a deal like the companies that they have they don't want to reveal the real deal that they have like a lot is under the table. Yes so if a couple is going to come they'll first see how you do your things. If you doing things she believe then definitely they'll be out. They won't want to get involved. What about the war between the Premier League and the Federation itself? That has been our major another another major worry for us because you see the Federation wants to run the league. That's what FIFA says. But the KPL says they had a deal the Federation that went. Yes that deal expands next year. 2020. So I pray that the entity that we are going to have to run our league in 2020 will work in tandem with the Federation and I hope that when they work in tandem with the Federation they'll be able to point out the problems that they see in the Federation. You see when you're going to work with someone and you just say yes man then we won't have any progress. So it's they are I wish they be guys know what they do and the guys who point are the wrongs when there is a wrong. Yeah yeah well we are still talking to Zaxo Guda who is a journalist here in Kenya sports journalist and this is fast book he has written away from football that is dealing with the pain the politics and the privilege in Kenyan football. Kenyan football started way back in 1926 with the Gossage Cup that is one of the most recognized competitions that have been brought up and also we had the likes of the Remington Cup in the 40s and we have got other journalists who have written books we have got the legendary Roy Gashui who wrote his book also and we've got Joe Cardengas book that was written by John Nene that's a big one for you we have got also Wandera Gilbert Alan Wanga and now we have got away from victory by Zachary Oguda who also writes you usually you wrote for Sokka. Sokka then then right now I'm at footer. footer.com but he's still writing for us here on away from the major question will be your inspiration to write the book where did it come from? my inspiration was I had seen let me not say it's a gap as per say but I felt there's more about football that people are not saying yes like right now in your station you can't talk about every other thing yeah maybe just touch on them majorly because of time and every other thing but you see with a book you can do anything you want yeah you have the liberty of saying what you want as long as there are credible things and you get credible interviews from people yeah so in a book I felt we should have more people to write more about things that have not been said before actually this book in every other chapter anyone can just write a book about the chapter you see when you talking about Gorma Gorma is a very very big club the very very rich history someone can just do a book about Gorma yeah someone can just do a book about edge cheating yes someone can just do a book about Rambisters yeah so I just wanted to touch on simple simple major major topics yeah but I feel there's still a lot of things to write about apart from our mainstream media and every other thing yeah and this is the way we should go to have everything covered before I talk about the funds and the instability in Gorma yeah Club Lensesing was a major major deal in Kenyan football when calf said that everybody else confirmed to club lancesing they said that all our clubs have to confirm to club lancesing but we went ahead to give clubs lanceses to go ahead and participate yet they are not good enough to participate how dire and bad was it for club lancesing in Kenya uh club lancesing majorally what I did was on moroni youth and tika united and a bit of sofa parka yeah because of the club that felt that uh they all operation was like meant to target them yes that's what the girl still believes that's what the guy from tika united still believes and you see you can't say like they were wrong yeah because in club lancesing every other club was need apart from the financial statement every other club was needed to have a youth team yes every other club was needed to confirm with the I mean they find out how they pay players yes that's every other player ought to have an account where money is streamed and everything a functioning office and the entire thing that you need in a professional club yes but you see now moroni youth tika united and sofa parka were locked out at some point yes a club like gormaya uh kaka mega homeboys and um let's say willing is a bit good and uh let's say task are given the green light in that club lancesing I want to tell you that when I was working for soka uh we had these are the monthly award thing where we award players who performed well yes monthly so there's a time that kagere had uh won that man's award that's after being after the club had been given a certificate to participate they had given they've been given the green light that they passed the club lancesing thing but when kagere came to the office definitely you're going to give him his money yes through his bank account because we we don't deal with cash you see how the situation work yes the guy told us him he doesn't have any bank account that we need to wire the money actually came with the bag a very big bag he wanted the money money cash in cash yeah so we asked if that was something that happened to every other person at gotma he said no there are people who have accounts but he doesn't see the need of an account yeah so he asked if this is the how he runs his thing he told us that's how he's been doing it with the club yeah so that alone will tell you the club lancesing criteria wasn't followed to the latter yeah if you look at the clubs now how many clubs have like cute teams how many clubs will you say they have their right financial they can't even pay players yes these are clubs that pass the club lancesing thing so i mean you can't say you can't rubbish the adagala comments that the club lancesing was meant to target them yeah so it was a nice nice idea if you ask me yeah but the way it was implemented was where they got it wrong yeah yeah finally you talk about the funds yeah i mean fans i demand in lot you've seen it with the federation every time you ask question every time we ask question they say ah you negative you don't want to support your own things of that sort yeah but that's a worldwide thing you people will ask why maize is not in a ginting and squad right ibala is not in things like that is a worldwide thing yeah but now the problem the federation we have is where every time we ask questions they take it on a personal level like ah robot doesn't want the federation to succeed yes or good and on the federation because you're asking questions you see these are guys who are not used to be asked questions my point here on the fans chapter was we have a very very demanding lot yeah as long as maybe they want us not to ask questions i think at times to go overboard yes like i remember when um we were playing gana here at home yeah so when the team buzz was entering the stadium i could see the fans tell guys they were kind of poor kind of sale that uh le om nakulatano yes le om nakulatano yes these are these are your home fans they telling you my friends this team is not yoke i mean five five and you are at home yeah so see even for the players themselves the mental i mean you entered in your study and we expect guys behind you yeah we're telling them when you stand no chance i mean so that's where i had the problem with the fans and i've hit them in some two or three pages on that mini i mean if you go through it you'll find it so every other person is touching this book it's not about the federation and yeah yeah the person i've touched on every other major aspect that has been railed again well away from victory by zakari okuda is our newest book in kenyan football you should read it where can we find the book and how much does it go for the book goes for a thousand shillings there's a pay bill number that i normally share on my social media hundreds that's zaksa good on facebook zaksa good on twitter and zaksa good on instagram yeah the book can be found in a place called there's a bookshop called uh narok book club narok book club is situated in town along monrovia street it's just a starting business you see i'm one guy who likes promoting upcoming yes projects imagine if they've been doing online work yeah like when you want your book it's delivered where you are countrywide yeah maybe at a fee the other shillings is for guys who want to collect their books at the cbd but when you in kisumu or whether you need to come now you'll just need to know how much you need to send to send that via kuru service or any other thing yeah but you wouldn't get the book in every other place okay yeah thanks a lot zakari this is one of the books that we have the forward has been written by boneface and bani and sami omol my director is asking if you have a soft copy no i'm still not i'm not still not doing soft copies because uh i had a very bad experience with the michelle obama book uh becoming becoming yes so you see for michelle obama she is already made it yeah at least she did some good copies yeah but the soft copies that were out i think dented her the sales of the book you say i've taken a lot of time to publish this yeah and in the in the city for money so i'll still eat fast then if i feel like i want to give you free things i'll give you so that you can photocopy and sell for guides for future savings they they used to be doing yeah well thanks a lot zakari for coming we are still on with zakari good on our next edition of the africa cup of nations we'll be talking everything harambe stars as they prepare for their game this evening at 7 p.m in madrid against drc of kongo and we'll be having ronaldo called the sofa parka striker and former fc lovebirds player idisha kanda to talk about the progress of harambe stars as we heard onto the africa cup of nations but before we do that let's look at the road to the africa cup of nations for major teams and this is an nostalgic feel of the africa cup of nations draw that was done in egypt in 29 early this year for the preparations of the tournament itself in egypt