Kenya Coach Finally Joins His Squad

Kenya head coach Antoine Hey was yesterday paid his outstanding salary, amounting to Kshs 5.2 million (£40,000), and immediately flew out of the country to join his charges in Nigeria. The payment is for the three months that the coach has been with the team.

Hey was presented the cheque by Kenya’s Sports Minister, Professor Hellen Sambili at a press conference yesterday. Sambili explained that her Ministry was in the dark about the coach’s predicament and blamed the salary woes on the FKL (Football Kenya Limited).

The coach told the media that he had failed to travel with the team because the cheque he had been given earlier by the FKL bounced, making him worried that he might not get his money.

But Sambili said that her Ministry was not aware of the coach’s woes, even after it settled the players’ allowances on Wednesday.

It yesterday emerged that the government, through the Office of the Prime Minister (who had negotiated the coach’s contract with the Germany government), had availed the cheque to the FKL to settle the coach’s outstanding dues.

The officials not only deposited the cheque into a frozen account, but also slashed the amount to Kshs 1.4 million (£12,000) - a quarter of what was actually owed to the coach.

When he raised the two issues with the top FKL officials, they promised to solve it in a matter of days but instead flew to the Bahamas to attend the annual FIFA congress.

After handing the coach his cheque yesterday, the Minister revealed that the coach’s salary will henceforth be paid by the German Government, who seconded him to the Kenyan Government in February this year.

In the contract, the Government of Kenya was supposed to pay his salary in the initial three months before the German Government took over thereafter