 We never get tired of talking matter sports in the entire world, but obviously what is happening in Kenya and our continent Africa, but right now we want to discuss about football development in Africa with an expert in the sector, Brian Weissala, founder and CEO of Football Foundation for Africa. Good to see you man, how are you doing? I'm doing very well Maxwell, thank you very much for having me today. Thank you for coming through you, you were in Rwanda the other day, when did you travel back? I travel back on Sunday, actually got back to Kenya on Sunday morning. What was really happening in Rwanda? Rwanda has been a beer of activities lately as far as sports is concerned, hosting basketball, championship and a lot of conferences taking place. President Polkagama has been passionate about sports, is it also attributed to him, his love for the sport? I think Rwanda is one of the few countries in Africa who have realized the potential of sports and specifically the business side of it. So they are pushing a lot sports tourism, so selling Rwanda as a destination for sports tourism. I think they also have in place a very comprehensive sports development policy which was launched last year that they are trying to develop. And this is one of the reasons I was also there to explore opportunities, maybe I'll share more about that later in the show. But Rwanda is becoming a sports destination on the continent and they are packaging themselves in that way. Are they embracing the sports initiatives programs being launched to ensure that growth and development of the sport is on another level? You can see a lot what they are doing especially in basketball, hosting the high level events from NB Africa and this kind of thing. So this kind of things bring resources, they bring the needed visibility to the country. And you also know the partnerships they have for example with Arsenal and PSG, visit Rwanda. So this is all in line with sports tourism and how they are trying to package themselves. So it's a matter of attracting resources to the country to develop sports and from Kagame himself he understands the value of sports in terms of a platform for human development. So that's very much part of their sports development policy and it will be interesting to see how they progress in the next five to ten years because their policy was relaunched last year and they have a ten year plan. And what will be interesting for me as well to see if other countries can follow suit or borrow from what Rwanda is doing to promote and develop sports in their own countries. Being a patriotic Kenya I know you mean well for Kenya as a country where you come from you want it to thrive as far as sports and football development is concerned. African cup of nations is currently happening but Kenya is not participating. As someone who forms an integral part as far as ensuring that you know football grows and gets to another level not only in African continent but the entire world. Do you think whatever you've been advocating for and pushing the initiative has been borrowed to be incorporated in Kenyan system? So what I've been advocating for pushing is more investment into grass roots football on the continent. Of course starting with Kenya because I think this is really critical. When you see what is happening at AFKON and the countries that are there of course some of the countries there are what you call traditional powerhouses they really miss out. But at the same time we have other powerhouses that are at home it's not only Kenya, South Africa, DRC, Zambia. They have all missed out on AFKON but AFKON for me is the platform where you get to show the work that you have been doing over the years. So if you look at the countries that have made it the lack of Cape Vard, Comoros, they have very long term strategies that involve development of the grass roots. And that is something that over time Kenya and even the continent as a whole has fallen back. If you look at Kenya in the late 80s, early 90s, Kenya was a football powerhouse on the continent. We made it to the 1988 AFKON, 1990 AFKON and this AFKON had only 8 teams, 1992 as well. We made it there and there were only 12 teams. So Kenya was a powerhouse but after that from 1994 things started to change a bit in the sports space. You can indirectly attribute some of it to politics which are issues of governance. It's very important that we start looking at how we manage sport, how we govern sport, who gets. I think early on the show people talk about getting the right leaders in place. So these are some of the things where Kenya has fallen back in terms of development. It's not an issue that there is no talent in the country. It's how do we manage this talent so that it gets to the highest level. So since the mid 90s until 2004 when we made it again to AFKON after beating Kip Fad here, not much has been done in terms of developing the sport from the grassroots level. And I also say it's important that we be seen to develop the sport as a business because things have moved from when football was very amateurish. Now football is business. You see when we talk about football development people will probably think about coaches, referees but how are we managing our clubs for example right from the grass. So these are economically socially viable entities. I think we need a more holistic approach when it comes to football development. We need to make it relevant to the society in which we are in. Government needs to invest, the private sector needs to invest and if we don't get especially the governance aspects of football right then we turn away investors from football. And this is the challenge we have now. We made it to the 2019 AFKON but for me it was not something that we should be proud of per se. We all know what happened with Sierra Leone being banned by FIFA and it was more of a case of chance rather than merit that we made to 2019 AFKON. But we can attribute all this to our failure to develop the sport holistically right from the grassroots. And this is something I keep saying and that's why the reasons I set up the football foundation for Africa to work directly with grassroots football communities. We need to have academies, clubs and other organizations using football in one way or the other because the way the industry is structured globally resources are distributed top down and when this happens it really gets to the bottom of the pyramid. So the federations will get the money, they will try to put in place the program but by the time it reaches to that club at the grassroots there is very few resources. We have little happening in terms of infrastructure development. Even the coaching education that we have is not reaching as many coaches as it should. The clubs at the bottom there they don't have sponsors because they have not been trained in the business of sports. How do they package themselves so that they can attract even the local businesses, the local communities to come and support them. It's really shifting our focus away from just thinking of football as talent development, coaching developing, referring development to a more holistic approach and seeing how can we use football as a platform to develop young people so that corporates can come in, international development agencies can come in. So how do we get more resources to the grassroots level in Kenya? Excellent insights as far as football development at Machinani grassroots is concerned especially in investment in the sport because I think we all know that is where you and I understand that is where people are passionate about football, plenty of untapped potential but we lack policies and structures and people mistake football investment and development at Machinani for this tournament that happened during December holidays. You know someone staging a competition then waiting for another year to do another one without continuity of these players who have graced these competitions. Is it high time now those people who are at the helm of football management, government aspect of the sports can consider that its high time policies, structures at the grassroots level are enhanced to ensure that we get to another stage. I think policies have always been there. We are always developing policies and launching policies. For me the challenge usually is in implementation of these policies. It doesn't matter how good a documentary you come up with if you don't have the people to do it. Colorful blueprint, no execution. And execution is a matter of people. We need more people in sports, in football not only passionate people but also knowledgeable people. For a long time in Africa especially sports management has not developed. Sports management education is lacking because football was not being treated as an industry. It was more of a leisure activity as a past time and therefore we have not developed the knowledge to support the growth of the industry. We have not developed the right professionals to support the growth of the industry. Look at football for example. A lot of the managers or the administrators you have there are doing it more as a side job or as a part time. This is what I do but I also double up as chairman of a certain club. This is what I do but I'm also chairman of a sub branch somewhere in the country. So we don't have enough full time professionals, sports management professionals to run the industry. And it's because also the industry has not been paying as other professions. So it's a difficult situation to be in but I think it's high time we get more people who can manage football on the continent. And these people should be dedicated to the management of sports the management of football on the continent. So we are doing it as a past time or for other reason. You see the tournaments that are organized now. Usually it's political. Right now there's a lot of politics going on in the country. So we'll find politicians organizing tournaments for young people. Yeah this is good but as you rightly point out. And saying that they want to nurture talent. Exactly. I think that has been a misused phrase lately. It's a misused phrase especially by politicians but we need those resources to point out there is no continuity. After this election period then what happens after? Who will be there? That's why I think we need more players who are dedicated to the development of sports development of football in the country who can have the right knowledge as well because we have very few people who are trained in sports management and those who are trained are not even working in the field or they are not being given the chance to run the critical institutions that are responsible for development for the development of sports. There is a problem bedeviling Kenya especially when it comes to matters elections of sporting federations. Forma players want to rise to the occasion and get elected to be at the helm to serve as administrators in our federations football FKF, athletics Kenya, AK Kenya, rugby union, KRU and they always say that it has to be given to me because I am a former player. Distinguising the aspect of you being a former player and being a football manager are two different things. Patrick Motepe for example the man in charge of confederation of african football I think he is the owner president of Mamelodi Sundowns as well is a man whose business you know a expert he is on another level and he must have also done football development as a course as something he pursued in an institution. We infiltrate that into Kenyan football minds that you know you don't need to be a good manager for having played football. Sometimes we get good managers not from football background because right now as we speak FKF take a committees 6 months is almost elapsing and we will be having elections people will be standing for elections and you will see form a players most of them vying for presidents that you know it has to be given to me because I played football for national team I think that's the challenge we have and I will challenge these players to come out and not just saying we deserve these leadership positions but to show us how they are going to contribute to the development of the sport can they come up with strategic plans that will be implemented for example and again this goes back to how we develop especially players from the grass roots level you know in Africa in Kenya sometimes I feel or rather my opinion is the industry has been me sold to us so you have people who are really focusing on being footballers at the expense probably of their education you find most of our players after high school probably they did not pursue an education father and they focused on football which means it's okay for those who make it in football and they make it to a certain level where they are able to earn from the sport but you and me know these are very few as a very low percentage of players who are earning sustainable income from playing football so what I have been advocating for is some kind of dual career yes you are pursuing your football professionally but it's also important to see your education so that even after playing you can come back to the federation you see I was a player but I also have this diploma and this and this and therefore I can contribute the development of this game but most of these players honestly cannot they have some inherent skills by a virtue of playing at the highest level for example leadership skills they have them teamwork they already have them communication they have these skills but they do not have the technical know-how to manage the sport they are not managers per se so that's the challenge we have and our challenge players right from an early age not to consider football as a career but consider it as a tool that they have for a certain duration and then they have to move on to other things because most players by 35, 34 especially here in Africa you have to stop playing what do you do then not all of them can be coaches but a lot of them could be managers for example if they have the right education look at what has happened in Kamehru now a toe has taken over the running of the federation one he is confident he commands a lot of international attention by a same time he has taken time to develop his education or his management skills through education and therefore when he stands up and says I want to take over the leadership of football in this country he has all the credentials it takes but how many of our former players can do the same how many of our former players can say that and this is a challenge the players that we have now they should already even as they are playing start thinking about that future of what they want to do after football even during their football and be able to package themselves in that way somebody like Motsepe for him to get to the calf level of course his business acumen is top notch very influential person in South Africa and you know at that level also it's about influence how much can you influence as with this connection he can probably bring more resources into the continent's football but at the same time I think we need people who are entirely dedicated to the management of football and that's why I think it's important for a person like Motsepe to have a very strong secretariat to hear the national level you know you can be at the presidential level and maybe for you it was by virtue of your influence but what kind of SG do you have in place what kind of CEO do you have in place is this a strong person Jan Infantino, FIFA president has been doing ensuring that in this you know member countries there is federation that are strong to support his course to ensure that football at the global stage is enhanced and this is a very critical aspect of players besides their football career they can have an alternative thing we've seen the likes of Alan Wang a former player he played for several clubs locally FC Leopards and he played for the national team and right now as you speak is the sports director at the Kamega County after announcing his retirement in parting ways with Kamega homeboys it is something that you know we can't fail to take home Anthony Modokimani he played for Madara United FC Leopards he got injured at the tender age 24 his football career got crippled paralyzed but he had something on the side and that's what we've been seeing the likes of Bonfa Sambani Simon Mulama not forgetting a very one former captain for the national team those guys are top pandits on TV when it comes to matters football analysis it is something that we see with Didier Drogba at an international level is moderating a session that Agala Naita that has to add Ballondor I think it is something that our footballers like you said have to emulate but as a stakeholder what do they say when you tell them so I think most are open to the idea because nowadays I interact with players a lot especially at the grass roots level I think they see it but still it's a bit of reluctance and it's because of what football is I am a footballer myself I played football up to national NSL level by then I was playing for Strathmore University FC and you can see the passion that is there when you talk about Africa we always talk about passion talent we want to be footballers but the reality on the ground is that they are not enough professional opportunities for footballers on the continent so two things have to happen one players have to fashion themselves differently so that they have this dual approach to their career and then as an industry we also need to start thinking more holistically as I said before we need to start seeing what other opportunities are there in the industry you know one professional player in Europe you can find is employing about 20 people indirectly to support him there is physiotherapist, there is lawyers there is statisticians how come in Africa we have not taken time to look at what other opportunities are there to support the development of sports I mean we need researchers in the game because I don't need to be a player to be part of the team I can be a physiotherapist exactly and you still get to work closely to your passion because it is all about passion at some time most of the time if you can be a researcher and you are giving us data on how football is developing on the continent then there is a huge opportunity for that the participation level in Africa are very high but nobody is taking the time to even quantify and informing the continent of the economic potential of the sport and this should be the work of an economist so imagine a situation where you have an economist who is also passionate about football and is able to give us direction on how and why we need to invest in football right now you go to a lot of companies they will ask you ok you want us to support you you want to support your organisers you want us to support your tournament but what is the return on investment for us because everybody is looking for a return then that's where the conversation usually drops our federations they have a product like the national team but they are unable to package it to our corporate to sell it that needs investment in good sports management education marketing education sponsorship education a lot of research happens around in these spaces but in Africa we haven't done enough you yourself have said that you are in Stratham and Stratham is one of the institutions that is good at offering scholarships to those people who exhibit enormous talent as far as sports is concerned football, basketball, rugby how do you think sports stay cold as locally can collaborate and partner with these institutions the likes of Daystar, the likes of Catholic University of East Africa to ensure that sportsmen we get to recognize them because sometimes you can blame football as someone wants to play for let's say mother united just an example get some few coins so that feeds his family and also use the remaining one to educate himself but you know it's not enough so how can there be a collaboration and concrete partnership of our institutions and local sports stay colder so that you know innovation of scholarship programs can continue to empower our sportsmen academically I think that is something that I have seen I think over the last even while I was here over the last 10 years that some institutions are doing very well Stratham University has a very good sports scholarship program I think even MKU they do it a lot of our universities are offering these things so you find they are pursuing the bachelor of commas and they are also playing for the university team but after university what happens then you see a lot of these people they would stop playing when they start pursuing their careers they stop playing and most of them don't even contribute back to the sport it was basketball it was football that afforded your scholarship but once you are done with that then that's that but if these people can see that they need the expertise they have gained as a marketing expert they can come back and support football I think that should be encouraged to further cement the partnerships between sports and our institution I think these are also the places that should be doing research I know in Kenya currently it's only KU that is known for sports and even their sports what they give as a sports management program is not highly developed and how closely do they work for example with our federations you could be running sports management programs but is the industry consuming is the federation for example calling on experts at KU professors of sports and this kind of thing to help them in drawing up their strategies one of the things I realised after venturing into football from the development side we have so many sports management scholars from Africa but based outside the continent because our industry was not consuming or rather is not consuming what they can produce so one of the things I've been trying to do is to bring these people what the growth of the industry and the continent and I run a show I think we should be starting next month Africa football business show I try to bring people from academia people from industry and see how do we create a conversation those interactions that can feed into the development of the industry because it shouldn't be a case of guesswork sometimes I say when we say okay we are passionate we are talented it also becomes a game of chance but are we able to replicate that in 2025? probably not because what we did was chance but if you are investing in proper knowledge creation and dissemination structures then you can know okay we did not qualify for 2021 why because of this and this and this this is what we tried and this failed like it is something that has happened in Ghana I was reading some press release this particular morning ministry of sports for Ghanaian government as someone does they call us meeting involving football officials to ask what really transpired in Cameroon for the elimination at the group stage something that has never happened I think in the previous year so going back to the drawing board and establishing a future what went wrong and what do we do moving forward because you can't get to a point where okay we have failed but you don't know what went wrong simply because you do not have a proper plan in place see when you have a plan then you know where your plan did not work and you try to correct and it might not work even the second time the third time so you know what do we change so that's I think is where our our sports has been struggling that's where our football has been struggling we need to get more professionals on the board we need to get the research tanks in place so that we have a more knowledge driven industry as opposed to just passion driven industry so what's the future of football in Africa as a continent are we progressive are we getting somewhere judging by AFKON I think we are doing well so we've not had enough platforms on the continent to discuss football development and for me also say now football enterprise development because we need to start looking at football as an enterprise also the discussion of football on the continent has been restricted to very closed spaces and that is something as the football foundation for Africa I'm trying to address and that's why I was in Kigali so later this year we'll be organizing the first Africa football business summit and this will be a multi stakeholder platform bringing together government private sector the federations clubs let's have one platform where we can start to talk about an agenda for African football and let's involve everyone the plan is to make it a bionil event so that in between the two years we can also take stock of what we are doing accountability is also one of the challenges we have how are we accountable to ourselves so those symposiums people discuss and they go away sometimes people discuss then after they have left the conference nothing is implemented no follow up so we are trying to create something different something agenda driven so that in two years time we can come and say this is what happened in 2022 where we in 2024 in terms of developing the Africa football industry and I think by creating this independent platform Africa will start also having a voice in the development of football because right now we are the biggest consumers of football in my opinion as a continent but we do not have a strong voice the football agenda has mainly been driven by Europe because that's where the industry is most developed but how do we change that or how do we make Africa stronger in the football space so these are some of the discussions we need to start having how do we strengthen the African sports ecosystem so that we will be seen to playing at almost equal level in Europe I'm not saying we create a football that looks like European football but economically I think if we organize ourselves well then we can start to contribute more towards the global agenda and you just mentioned the idea of players even being stopped from travelling back this is all an issue of economic value these players are being played huge amounts of money salary so their clubs have taken a financial risk and that's why they would stop and say no we don't want to release our players for two weeks their respective practitioners can fake an injury exactly they will fake injuries and these kind of things but it's because they are looking at the economic value the AFKON vis-a-vis what they are getting at their clubs they are saying the European Championships which is played every four years is almost 20 times what the value of AFKON that's in financial returns so you see those kind of conversations we are not having them so how do we grow the economic value of AFKON for example so that even as a tournament it is respected so that when money is called to go and play for Senegal it doesn't even have to think twice when salary is called they don't have to think twice in all this conversation they have been quiet the players themselves they haven't talked it's the Ian Wright which means they know the players they know this is what our club is investing in us going to AFKON it's like doing your country a favor or they will say it's patriotism so money supersedes patriotism because at the club level they are heavily paid unlike at the national team level where you have to offer patriotic assignments to your team someone like in the past during Samnyamuia era you've been there as well as african football is concerned so they are on flight charges to travel back to represent Kenya I think we have to be honest and say there is only so much you can do out of patriotism and love for your country but it gets to a point where you are saying where does it make sense for me to invest myself and that's why we see all african players want to to live and play in Europe at some point my dream or rather my goal is one day players will just want to play in Africa because it offers more or less the same economic activities Alexong is back in Africa playing in Djibouti because the financial rewards are there I think it's the best run what is the secret behind this first rising profile of clubs in Djibouti I think it's only this one club it's called Solastam thing but you have to look at who owns it and this kind of thing we have big businessmen sometimes they get behind a club they put in their money usually just what do you say as a toy it's not really like they are looking for a return from the club but we need to move beyond that but how do we attract more Alexong back to the continent to make our football more entertaining to pull more funds to the study I think those are the questions we need to start asking ourselves over the year and we make it consistent as you put it out it's not just a one of you know AFKON will be over in February 6 we have to go back to our leagues our leagues attractive look at East Africa no representation I want to talk about East Africa no representation at the AFKON apart from Ethiopia who have already been kicked out as the region sat down and tried to determine how come we are not able to qualify can we collaborate as a region to find solutions for example the AFKON has been expanded to 24 teams but still no team from the East Africa and community where is the problem so if we don't start as ourselves these critical questions then we will always find ourselves complaining our football is being poorly run football is corruption but we cannot complain forever we need to come up with solutions we need to identify where we are going wrong so that we can move forward where is the problem Afrika right now 24 teams taking part no one from East Africa representing this subcontinent of course that has been the parting shot for Brian Weissala the CEO and founder for football foundation for Africa quality conversation and thank you for coming through it's been an interesting discussion and we look forward having more of this going forward and I definitely look forward to coming back and informing you of our project and our programs and it's always a pleasure of course touchline continues of course it's the end of the show but continues on social media platforms at touchline Y25 at touchline Y244 where is the problem as far as African football especially in East Africa is concerned because right now the tournament in Cameroon is going after a couple of nations which was our sole representative has been eliminated Kenya unfortunately not taking part of course it's the discussion that continues but it's been a pleasure having you on board thank you for tuning in Saturday next time same place hope to see you again keep ensuring that you comply with the guidelines as far as COVID-19 pandemic is concerned so that we can combat this international monster thank you for tuning in God bless peace and have a nice weekend