Mombasa football stakeholders cite discrimination in Harambee Stars team selection

Football stakeholders from Mombasa County have lamented over discrimination in the selection of national team players.

Their cries come after none of the players from the leagues based in the vast county received a call-up to the national senior and U20 football teams that are expected to take part in the four-nation tournament in Malawi between March 18 and March 26.

Kisimani Youth FC representative Swaleh Abdalla argued that the national team scouts are sleeping in their job.

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“Those people who have been given the opportunity to select national team players do not do their job well. Most of the times they only scout players from the Kenyan Premier League.

But in reality, there are a lot of clubs in Division one, Regional and the county leagues with many good football players.

If those responsible for the selection had visited the grassroots clubs, they would have got brilliant players who would have represented the national team better than even those playing in the premier league,” he was quoted by Spotlite KE.

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Abdalla went on to give an example of the recently held Rashid Abdalla football tournament where a lot football talents were on display.

According to him, the national team coaches only watch Bandari games when searching for football talents.

“It is very sad that all the national team players hail from the mainland. There are a lot of players in Mombasa but the selectors only look at Bandari. We have SS Assad here and several division one and two clubs with a lot of good players. At least they would have called 3 players from the coast region,” noted Abdalla.  

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Taifa Stars skipper Mubarak Omar echoed Abdalla’s arguments, stating that there are many gifted players in the coastal part of the country.

“I would like to urge the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to increase the number of scouts in grassroot leagues so that we can source and help these talents play professional football abroad.

I want to confirm that there are a lot of talents in Mombasa and request the Harambee stars coach to urge his scouts to source for talents in Mombasa,” ended Omar.

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