Blog: Is it true that Gor Mahia is being robbed

Gor Mahia is arguably one of the teams with the biggest followership in the country, an aspect that won the followers the nick name Green Army, an army which follows the team whenever and wherever it plays, offering a vocal support, the support that has enabled the club reach the far it has reached.

Continental accolade

The club is also not just big because of the number of fans; it has also won major national trophies, the highlight being 12 league titles in the team’s history which is also capped by a continental accolade.

However, the big fanbase not only provides the support from the stands by acting as the 12^th player but also provides room for different ideas as concerns how the team’s affairs should be run. The debate at the moment among the Green Army on the interactive fans site gormahia.net is that Gor Mahia is being robbed by other Kenyan Premier League teams.

Submissive accomplice

The general insinuation being fronted by the followers, who most associate with an insatiable affinity for rebellion, is that when Gor Mahia plays as the away team in Nairobi, the end product is that they play a dormant compliance role as they are robbed not even at gunpoint. This is in consideration that apart from AFC Leopards, all other Nairobi teams can only boast of a handful supporters, whose monetary influence can’t keep their team running even for a day.

 The fans’ reactions in the debate point to the fact that Nairobi County, apart from Gor Mahia, has seven teams: AFC Leopards, City Stars, Mathare United, KCB, Rangers, Sofapaka and Tusker. Save for AFC Leopards, the rest of the teams do not have fans that can match Gor Mahia’s and with them playing as the home team and walking away with all the gate collections is so unfair to Gor Mahia.

Oblivious

However, the Green Army members seem to be oblivious that this is a worldwide phenomenon, as they demand that the league’s management work out a formula that would enable a chunk of the proceeds go to the club so that the players benefit as part of the fans support, an issue which KPL’s Operations and Logistics officer Frank Okoth disagrees with.

Okoth holds on to the idea that there is nothing KPL can do about the issue and even goes ahead to declare that the suggestion is ill advised since it is stipulated that the home team will take home all the proceeds from the game and KPL cannot take part in an action that is not done anywhere else in the world.

-The rules about league’s gate collections are very clear, the home team organizes everything including the pricing of tickets and in the end of the event, they take all the proceeds from the game, there is no shortcut about that and KPL cannot enter into some clandestine arrangement that will be in contravention of what happens worldwide, he told futaa.com.

Only in President’s Cup

In his reaction, he says it is only in the President’s Cup (formerly FKL Cup) that the teams taking part in a duel do share the proceeds from the game on a 50 – 50 basis after the federation has taken its share and the same cannot be applied in league matches.

-What the fans are suggesting only happens in the FKL Cup where the two participating teams share equally what remains of the proceeds after the federation’s share has been deducted, he added.

Renowned lawyer

With Gor Mahia fans foreseeing a situation where teams from as far flung areas as Kakamega coming to play their home games against Gor Mahia in Nairobi where there are large capacity stadia with the financial allure, their hope seems to rest on their chairman’s intellect in influencing matters as he is a renowned lawyer

But still, the question will remain: Is Gor Mahia being robbed?