Bandari FC captain Felly Mulumba has admitted that the quality of football in Kenya took a downward trajectory when South African broadcaster, SuperSport terminated its sponsorship deal with the Kenyan Premier League.In April 2017, SuperSport stunned the football family in the country when it announced its exit from the Kenyan game over prolonged wrangles. This brought a halt to a multi-million deal that had lasted for ten years and threw Kenyan football back to darkness.The league continued without a broadcast partner until 2020 when Chinese company Startimes inked a seven-year deal with the now-disbanded Football Kenya Federation (FKF), they lasted for a year before taking off after the government disbanded the federation and installed a caretaker committee.In an interview, Mulumba who has played in Kenya for close to a decade turning out for Posta Rangers, Sofapaka, and Bandari said the rain started to hit the Kenyan game when the SuperSport exited in 2017.There was a time KPL matches were been shown at Supersport very good content, saa hii hata hujui games ziko channel gani.— Gus.Fring (@bradjrr) August 2, 2021 “When I compare the state of the league right now and during SuperSport days, I can say the quality has gone down. The league was very competitive then, there were many sponsors then and the broadcaster also helped many players get good deals outside the country because interested clubs would be watching the matches live and scout for talents,” he told Bonga Boli.“When SuperSport left, the downward trajectory started because the exposure for players reduced. All is not lost, I hope that football leadership in the country, the legends and government should work together to ensure that we grow the game to what it used to be”.The central defender further believes that lack of big league sponsorship has played a role in the struggles currently witnessed. More than half of the teams cannot pay their players and staff comfortably.“What makes the likes of the Tanzanian leagues vibrant is sponsorship, issues like failing to pay players are not so rampant like it is in the Kenyan league. In Kenya only six or seven teams are well-sponsored while the rest are struggling, this is an issue that we need to solve by getting as many sponsorships as possible,” he added.
