Former Harambee Stars midfielder Macdonald Mariga has torn into Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa after his comments on the quality of players in the country calling for his resignation from the post. The midfielder who has been capped 49 times played alongside experienced internationals including his brother Victor Wanyama, Kenya’s all-time top scorer Dennis Oliech and Musa Otieno just to mention a few.Mariga took to Twitter to slam Mwendwa for his comments on Kenya lacking quality players compared to top African countries noting that it was an insult to the players. I’m appalled by FKF President @Nmwendwa sentiments made on live Tv that Kenya has no talented football players to compete with other nations. This is an insult & disrespect to the current ,former & all upcoming footballers who have continuously suffered playing #NickMwendwaMustGo pic.twitter.com/S4sFPsLQDd— Mariga Macdonald (@MarigaOfficial) October 13, 2021 “I’m appalled by FKF President Nick Mwendwa sentiments made on live Tv that Kenya has no talented football players to compete with other nations. This is an insult and disrespect to the current, former and all upcoming footballers who have continuously suffered playing under his reign, “The players have shown immense pride and patriotism to represent the Kenyan flag in various international assignments and this is what they get in return. For 7 years under his leadership, Football in Kenya has gone backwards and no progress whatsoever and for that, We demand for his immediate apology and resignation as FKF boss,” wrote the 34-year-old. FKF boss comes under fire over comment on quality of Kenyan playersIn an interview with NTV on Monday night, Mwendwa claimed that Kenya lacked quality players compared to Mali who dimmed Harambee Stars hopes of qualifying for the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup.”Even if you bring (Jose) Mourinho or (Mikel) Arteta here, the work that needs to be done is we need to bring talent to the table, for you to win you need quality players. Let’s look at Mali, are we better than them? The answer is no because we never brought our players to that level,”Nick Mwendwa: Even if you make Mourinho or Arteta Harambee Stars coach, you need quality players for you to win.#TheGamePlan pic.twitter.com/d5LdioQuNg— NTV Kenya (@ntvkenya) October 11, 2021 “We have built coaches at the lower level, they are building talent that is going to come tomorrow, we looked at it and said we need to have a coach at a high level who can do this in a short term manner, we always wanted a long term coach but for the first time we said it’s the World Cup qualifiers and we needed someone for four games so that we can review his performances,” said Nick.To date, Mariga remains the only Kenyan player to have lifted the UEFA Champions League as he did it Inter Milan who become the first Italian side to win the treble back in 2010 under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho.
