Why the Once Mighty Gor Mahia fell on hard times
By Lawi Odera "Jaseme"
Since its formation in 1968, Gor Mahia has suffered from extremely poor and short sighted leadership. Many of its officials were primarily interested in enhancing their public profile, their political stature or in financial gains. As a result, despite having a huge committed fan base throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties, the club never acquired any assets, never set up an office or secretariat and never acquired any form of sponsorship. Nearly forty years after its formation, the club is still being run like a village team with no professionalism or business acumen.
Many of its leaders were committed fans but were completely bereft of ideas. Successive club chairmen oversaw the gradual decline of the club. They oversaw the dwindling of the fan base and did nothing. The club was almost always in financial dire straits and players often complained due to unpaid allowances. These officials had absolutely no ideas on how to raise funds other than to extend a begging hat to any politician who was eager to enhance his stature by associating with the club. All these club chairman left the club in worse shape than when they took over. The list of such officials is endless and includes the likes of Zack Mbori, Douglas Oyieng Odolla, Leslie Okudo, Kombai Rachuonyo, Fred Mwango, James Ogode, Obita Odero, Fred Odera and now Erastus Okul. Odolla earned disdain and dissaproval from many fans for expelling John Okello "Zangi", a promising and popular player in 1988 for no valid reason. Odiolla also massively rigged the elections of 1988 to put himself in office. Others like Mr Rachuonyo were simply hecklers who had nothing valuable to offer the club in terms of ideas. Most of them were incapable of putting the interests of the club ahead of their own selfish interests. Job Omino is credited with helping finance the club during its peak years in the 1980s. He deserves credit for it. But Omino could have used his largesse to put the club on a firm financial footing instead of increasing its dependency on handouts. He could have done it by helping purchase money generating assets that would help sustain the club in the future. His lack of foresight was such that he once stated that self supporting clubs were doomed to extinction. With good management this did not have to happen.
None of this officials had any business sense. They knew nothing about marketing, public relations, merchandizing or any other techniques used by professional clubs to raise funds. About the only way they knew to raise funds was to solicit it from politicians.
| But it is Erastus Okul who has taken incompetence and self centeredness to unprecedented levels, along with club secretary, Dr Juma Sule and Treasurer Elias Otieno. When they took over, they decided to run the club in a secretive fashion, disregarding the wishes of fans, members and other stakeholders. They started by withdrawing the team from the 2004 Transparency cup much to the chagrin of most fans. In 2005 they refused to participate in a playoff to determine which team would be relegated. Their egos led them to believe that such a playoff was beneath the club. The club was only saved from relegation when Nzoia Sugar withdrew from the league. By disregarding the wishes of most fans and members, they further alienated the fan base which was already dwindling rapidly. Many who would be inclined to attend matches stopped attending. |
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Even a match against the traditional rivals is no longer well attended. Attendance has plummeted largely due to the officials inability to win new fans.
In 2006, they refused to pay a fine imposed on them by the Kenya Premier League (KPL) for crowd trouble. Their rationale was that the KPL did not have a mandate to run football in Kenya. This is despite the fact that KPL had received a mandate from none other than FIFA, the world governing body. Even after a club fan payed off the fine, Mr Okul and his ilk refused to let the club resume league play. The biggest losers in Mr Okul's ego tripping were of course the fans who were left bitter and the players whose hard work had been wasted. What was amazing is the silence of most fans and former players. One is led to believe that most fans have pretty much given up any hope of a revival.
Okul as we understand had designs on turning the club into a privately traded company, something most fans oppose. He apparently thought he could cash in if the club stock was floated in the Nairobi Stock exchange. What he failed to realize that no sane individual would invest money in a poorly run organization with no professional management. Worse still, fans are vehemently against the privatization and if this were to happen, it would signal the final death knell of the club. Most fans would rather see it run as non profit organization where all the profits are re-invested in the club instead of lining an owners pockets.
| As of July 2006, the club had not held any real
elections in a decade. Elections used to be an excellent
way to give the club much needed publicity and renew fan
interest. The only way forward to save the club would be
for fans, members, former players and other stakeholders
to come together and chart the way forward. They must
determine what needs to be achieved within the next few
years in order to revive the club. Once this is
determined, elections should be held. Each candidate
must present a manifesto explaining how he intends to
achieve the stated goals. The days when club chairmen
would take office, do nothing during his term and leave
the club in worse shape than it was before should be a
thing of the past. The club is now in dire straights and
unless something drastic happens, it will cease to
exist.
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The once mighty Gor Mahia has nurtured and produced a vast array of talented players over the years. Players like Allan Thigo, Sammy Owino, Nahashon Oluoch, Bobby Ogolla, Abass Magongo, Peter Dawo, Abdalla Shebe, Sammy Omollo etc. The list is endless. These players performed brilliantly on the field, for both club and country. But unfortunately for the fans, the brilliance of these players was always let down by poor management. Officials have never been able to replicate the excellent performance of these players.
The brilliance of players like overlapping fullback Zedekiah Otieno "Zico" (right) who played for the club between 1991 and 1998 was let down by poor management
Lawi Odera is a guest writer for kenyapage.net