Second Edition
From Glory to Ghost Towns: The Fall of Secondary School Football in Kenya
Day One: Where Dreams Met Reality
I arrived at Musingu School on a warm March afternoon (after spending a few days in Kaplong boys high school), my bag still heavy with dreams and uncertainty. But Musingu wasted no time introducing me to its footballing soul. That very day, the school was hosting a friendly match against Mumias Sugar FC, a Premier League team.
I was stunned.
I stood on the sidelines watching players whose names I’d only heard on KBC radio or whispered about in village debates. Ali Breik, the midfield general who regularly featured for Harambee Stars. Walter Odede, a creative playmaker. Sylvanus Otema, Paul Ochieng, and the electric Mark Sirengo, Nick Yakhama—they were real, alive, and warming up just meters away from where I stood. I later came to normalize the friendly matches against Mumias sugar, Pan Paper, AFC leopards
The crowd? Insane. Students balanced on rooftops and windows, others packed along the touchline shoulder to shoulder. The atmosphere throbbed with anticipation. This wasn’t just a match. Fans not allowed inside were all over the place surrounding the school Fence. This was a Musingu rite of passage.
To the fans, teachers, students the board and even the area MP at Ikolomani, football was more than co-curricular—it was spiritual. That game wasn’t on TV, but in our minds, it felt like the Champions League. The roar, the drumming, the synchronized chants—it awakened something in me. A gentle man named Muchy welcomed me alongside other footballers Makuto Mulupi and Shida all who joined the team
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there visualizing—walking out in the school jersey, controlling my first pass under pressure, hearing the crowd chant our names. That’s what school football used to do. It sparked belief. It gave raw, unknown boys a theatre to perform in—and to dream.
“At Musingu, football wasn’t something we did. It was something we became.”
From Theatre to Trade Show
Fast-forward to today, and that stage is slowly being abandoned.
Secondary school football, once Kenya’s most vibrant and reliable talent nursery, is now drowning in corruption, shortcuts, and broken systems. The problem isn’t that talent has disappeared—it’s that we stopped nurturing it.
What used to be sacred is now soaked in scandal.
The Real Problems
Our secondary school football is crumbling from within. Here’s where it hurts the most:
Age Cheating
The worst-kept secret in school football. Players with IDs tucked away, already past their prime in youth football, dominate games meant for under-16s or under-19s. It kills motivation, distorts competition, and sends a terrible message to real, deserving teenagers. Despite the Nemis and Kemis being introduced. and being made mandatory age cheating and use of players as old as 22 years is very common in these games. Influential principals have been identified as key figures in perpetuating age cheating in Kenya’s secondary school sports. Their involvement often includes facilitating the recruitment of overage players, altering official documents, and shielding offenders from accountability. This malpractice undermines the integrity of school competitions and deprives genuine students of opportunities to showcase their talents.
Mercenary Players & Shopping Cart Schools
Some schools no longer build talent. They buy it. Students get parachuted in purely for tournaments, coached and managed by people not even affiliated with the school, and vanish once the term ends. These are not student-athletes—they’re seasonal imports. Since 2022 these schools were banned for violations
Friends’ School Bukembe Violation: Fielded a non-student who had previously played in the National Super League and left school in 2014.Sanction: Two-year ban from KSSSA competitions, effective September 8, 2022
Njabini Girls Secondary School Violation: Fielded two ineligible players (one over-age and another who hadn’t met the 90-day residency rule) during the 2022 Term Two National Games.Sanction: Disqualified; awaiting official confirmation of the ban length—likely covering late 2022 to late 2023
Madende High School Violation: Fielded a student who had been at the school for only two months (below the required three-month threshold) during the 2023 Western Region games. Sanction: Disqualified from that regional competition
Koyonzo Secondary School Violation: Fielded a player who had not met the 90-day residency rule in the 2023 Western Region Term One Games. Sanction: Disqualified from that regional tournament
Mpeketoni Secondary School Violation: Fielded over-age players in the U‑16 boys’ football games at the 2024 Lamu County competitions. Sanction: Two-year ban from county-level participation
Kabarnet High School Violation: Fielded four ineligible individuals (including alumni, a teacher, and an unverified “unknown individual”) during the 2023 Rift Valley games. Sanction: Three-year ban (through 2027). The team manager also received a four-year personal ban
Most of these schools however participated the following year after appeals and the cycle continues. No proper enforcement of the laws and follow up of schools that were banned ensuring they don’t participate. I also feel the law is less punitive therefore making schools take the risk
This year and last year the match between St. Anthonys Kitale and St. Josephs Kitale in the Trans Nzoia County games was a tense affair ending up prematurely with accusations from both sides on officiating, player ineligibility and in both occasions the result was determined off the field.
Kakamega High vs Musingu also attracted a fair attention for ineligibility and protests. Menengai High school and Nakuru Day had to be replayed the following day then postponed again to the third day.
What We Must Do
- Digitally track players using KCPE/KCSE–CAF-linked databases and follow up offenders
2. Disincentivize cheating through public exposure and punitive sanctions
3. Train and license PE teachers nationwide
4. Set up scouting days and youth combines
5. Link schools to FKF academies and local clubs
6. Fund football equipment in marginalized counties
Challenge to Stakeholders
If you’re a:
– Teacher: Are you a mentor or a middleman?
– Principal: Are you building legacy or buying trophies? Are you obstructing justice?
– Coach: Are you growing players or borrowing them?
– FKF official: When’s the last time you watched a school match in Lodwar, Kwale, Kilgoris?
– Parent: Is your child being developed—or being used?
Closing Thought
“The fall of school football isn’t just a sporting tragedy. It’s a national failure.”
If we don’t protect the dreamers in schools, there will be no stars for tomorrow. The Premier League player of 2030 is probably walking into Form One today—with no boots, no name, but all the talent in the world.
The next edition of Red Card to Old Ways will take a deep dive into Coaching in schools and how we prepare our players, club licensing in Kenya—how it started as a noble idea and became a cash-grab for opportunists. We’ll explore what works, what’s broken, and how to fix it.
RED CARD TO OLD WAYS!
The Red Card To Old Ways Blog
The Beginnings
I was born and raised in Baringo County: a place rarely mentioned in Kenya’s football narrative. We played the game passionately, but without systems, recognition, or real opportunity. That absence of structure is a microcosm of Kenyan football’s national crisis.
My journey took me to Musingu School in Kakamega , one of the country’s football powerhouses. I experienced the highs of intense school competitions—and the lows of poor planning, biased selections, and lost talent. From there, I played across all levels (current county league to Kpl) : university leagues, regional tournaments in East Africa, and professionally with St. Joseph FC and Nakuru All Stars. St. Joseph under the patronage of David Gikaria was a model football program with units from the under 10 to the senior team and a girls team as well with teams playing all levels of the Kenyan football then, while Robert Muthomi took us to global recognition shifting base to the Nakuru athletics club and professionalizing the club and he tried his best to commercialize and market the club achieving promotion to the premier league where we had relative success both on and off the pitch. Robert Muthomi made boys dream, made more to live their dreams, while Gikaria’s saints let us share the dream.
I am the founder of Nakuru City Football Academy, I am a licensed coach, and off the pitch, I am a finance and taxation consultant. From 2016 I worked as an analyst for Real Time Sportscast, an Austrian-based firm covering Kenyan Premier League data. My football education took me to Spain and Portugal, and into the heart of development philosophy at the Cruyff Foundation in Barcelona. I have served as Head of Football for UEFA Foundation for Children projects in Kenya, working to uplift communities and empower youth through football with dignity, structure, and opportunity.
What I’ve seen in Kenya—and in other countries—makes one thing clear:
We aren’t behind because of talent. We’re behind because of stubborn old systems.
The Problem: We’re Standing Still if not back peddling, the Continent Is Moving On
Kenyan football didn’t collapse overnight. It was ignored, politicized, and poorly managed. What hurts more is seeing nations with far fewer resources surpass us with bold reform and clear vision. Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Morroco and Cameroun have made the continent proud at the international stage with countless players in Europe, America and now the lucrative middle east football market. What shows our decline or stagnation though is countries we used to rank high above and even beat them in qualifiers now becoming regulars in continental tournaments and even Fifa events for youth.
Burkina Faso
- Reached the AFCON final in 2013, surprising the continent.
- Created players like Jonathan Pitroipa (one of my favorites while at Hamburg), Aristide Bancé, and Bakary Koné.
- Built national unity around football, invested in youth, and qualified consistently for AFCON since.
- All this while being ranked among Africa’s poorest countries.
Gambia (post Jahmeh)
- From minnows to AFCON quarter-finalists in 2021.
- Developed a steady talent pipeline through grassroots academies and smart scouting.
- Now have players like Eboué Adams and Adama Bojang in Europe.
- Young Gambians like Yankuba Minteh (Brighton, Premier League) show how targeted development and trust in youth pays off. Gambia’s rise on the international scene—culminating in their AFCON 2021 quarterfinal run—has made it a new scouting hotspot for European clubs, especially in the Premier League.
Rwanda
- Invested in modern stadiums, including the Kigali Pelé Stadium and Huye Stadium.
- Focused on CAF coaching licenses and local league stability.
- Created a clean, consistent league environment that now attracts foreign players and sponsors.
- Their football model has become part of a national branding strategy, linked to tourism and leadership reform of course highlighted by the infamous VisitRwanda Arsenal kit sponsorship.
Tanzania
- Simba SC and Yanga SC have made deep runs in the CAF Champions League, recently reaching quarterfinals and semifinals. Their local derby attracting a huge fanbase emulating the Al Ahly- Zamalek or the Kaizer chiefs- Orlando pirates showdowns- what is stopping the Mashemeji derby from becoming a global extravaganza? What can propel it to the level of Raja Casablanca vs Wydad Casablanca? Why do we always bow out of Champions league at the group stages?
- The Tanzanian Premier League is now home to dozens of foreign professionals from across Africa and even South America.
- Local investment from billionaire Mohammed “Mo” Dewji into Simba SC has turned the club into a modern African football brand with a lucrative annual budget that was cultivated gradually.
- Sponsorship deals (e.g. SportPesa, Azam TV) and professional management have transformed football into a viable career option.
And Kenya?
We’re still debating allowances, battling walkovers, and changing league formats mid-season. Our national team has been in and out of FIFA suspensions, and our youth football is largely left to rot. We’ve seen generations lost to corruption, disorganization, and lip service.
The gap is no longer about budgets—it’s about mentality, vision, and leadership.
Why This Blog Exists
Red Card to Old Ways is a call to rethink everything. Each month, I’ll break down a part of the game—school competitions, youth academies, the FKF structure, club licensing, coaching, and funding. I’ll draw from my journey and show how other nations built success on less.
This isn’t for applause. It’s for accountability.
A Challenge to You
Ask yourself:
- Why are countries with no major stadiums 10 years ago now exporting Premier League players, while we export walkouts and drama?
- Why do we praise raw talent but fail to build a pipeline that actually develops it?
- Why is our football story still based on individuals—Wanyama, Oliech, Mariga—rather than systems that can produce 50 of them?
If you’re a parent, coach, official, journalist, or fan—what role are you playing in either enabling the old ways or building something new?
We’ve blamed the FKF long enough. We must now start fixing the grassroots and demanding more from every level.
What’s Next
In the next post, we examine the rise and fall of Kenya’s secondary school football scene. Once the foundation of talent development, it’s now marred by structured age cheating well-funded, underappreciated, and in some counties, forgotten.
RED CARD!!!!!!!!!!