Nairobi News

Kenyan football has been awash with negative news since mid-last year majorly due to the exit of gaming firm SportPesa, which was the major sponsor of the Kenyan Premier League with this ensuring the finances trickle down to the clubs.

You would, however, expect a team like Kisumu AllStars that is fully supported by the County Government of Kisumu not to go through financial troubles. This is, however, not the case as the players, for the second time staged a sit-in at the county offices on Thursday demanding unpaid salaries.

“A number of us have been locked out of our houses because we cannot afford to pay rent, we have dependents who we no longer can afford to care for, yet the county keeps claiming we are being incited to protest whenever we ask for payment,” said one of the players who spoke to Nation on condition of anonymity.

“We have been promised a number of times that payment will be done yet to date we stare at empty bank accounts. We are demotivated because according to the contracts we signed, we are employees of the county and are not allowed to work elsewhere so our hands are tied.”

The county owes each of the 17 players between Sh52,000 to Sh56,000, which is an accumulation of six-months salaries.

Kisumu County, in a letter in our possession, admits that some players are yet to be paid but promises to clear the arrears.

“We wish to confirm that of the 38 players, 22 who were in the previous season and whose contracts were renewed have all received their salaries. We are experiencing delayed payments for the remaining 17 players who were newly recruited who will be paid as soon as the County Government receives funds from the National Treasury,” the letter signed Kisumu County Chief Sports Officer Thomas Ouko reads in part

Kisumu AllStars are 16th on the KPL standings with 8 points having played 17 matches.