For the first time in 28 years, Mathare United will fail to honour a league fixture due to the turbulent financial position of the club as they will issue a walkover against Bandari FC on Sunday.In recent seasons, the Slum Boys have had well documented financial struggles and pulled a great escape last season to survive relegation by the skin of their teeth and are on the brink of relegation as they are anchored to the foot of the table.A letter penned by the Mathare United Chairman Bob Munro, confirmed the club dishing out a walkover against Bandari as he highlighted some of the club’s heritage.“Today is a sad day in the 35-year history of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) and Mathare United FC (MUFC). lt’s an especially sad and even painful day for me and the MUFC staff, coaches, players and their families as well as for the tens of thousands of youth in the Mathare and neighbouring slums who dream of helping themselves and their families escape poverty by someday playing for Mathare United. Mathare United Chairman and Owner Bob Munro has announced that the team will not be in a position to host Bandari tomorrow for a league match due to serious financial struggles.The team is currently rooted at the bottom of the FKF Premier League table.#FKFPL pic.twitter.com/XV1yVuIQQZ— Ole Teya (@Kevin_teya) April 23, 2022 Today, sadly, our team is financially unable to host and honour a match for the first time since we started playing in the FKF leagues 28 years ago. Coincidentally, today we’re scheduled to play Bandari whose Head Coach, Anthony Kimani, is a MYSA/MUFC legend who captained our 2008 Kenyan Premier League Championship team, whose Goalkeeper Coach, Wilson Oburu, is a former MYSA/MUFC goalkeeper, and whose lineup includes previous MYSA/MUFC stars such as defender Andrew Juma, midfielders Whyvonne lsuza and Kevin Kimani plus striker Chris Ochieng,” read part of the letter from Munro.Mathare blamed their financial turmoil on the FKF forced expansion of the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) in February 2017, the related SuperSport termination of their KPL contract in March 2017 and the necessary but difficult Covid-19 suspension of the league for five months in 2020.The club went on to peg their woes on the FKF hostile takeover of the Kenyan Premier League in September 2020, the FKF failure to pay clubs a fair share of the KPL broadcast/title rights revenue, the FKF mismanagement of FIFA, GOK and sponsorships funds during 2018-21.Munro revealed that since 2018, the club has made serious proposals and held follow-up discussions with 48 companies in a wide range of sectors, including banking, insurance, airlines, energy and consumer goods.Their success rate was however limited with only four signed contracts and three of them being betting companies.FT: Vihiga Bullets 2-0 Mathare United #BulletsVsMathare pic.twitter.com/6QPtzfKYca— Mathare United FC (@MathareUtd) April 16, 2022 The Chairman added that he has been persistent in securing a sponsor for the club since last year but his efforts have bore no fruits which have depleted their coffers.“Since July 2021, I and our CEO still relentlessly tried to secure sponsors for this season but without success. This week the funds of our club, my family and many friends of our team were completely exhausted and we’re sadly unable to honour today’s match. With one exception, it should be no. There hasn’t been any new sponsors for any top clubs since 2020 as many companies cut their pre-Covid marketing and sponsorship budgets. The increasingly negative publicity about FKF also discouraged many companies. The FIFA ban then made the already difficult financial situation of clubs even worse. Today, our team is only one among nearly half of our top clubs, especially our community-based clubs, which are now struggling with serious financial problems. To have financially stable and competitive clubs and top league, a rigorous rethinking. restructuring and commercially-minded reorientation of FKF and Kenyan football is clearly needed,” concluded the letter.
