Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
William Njuguna
25 May 2011
A group of Danish investors have acquired Nairobi City Stars football team and will take over the running of the club immediately. In their first move they have sacked coach Ken Odhiambo and appointed former Sofapaka coach Ezekiel Akwana as the new tactician. Odhiambo’s assistant Hamisi Ogaya and team manager Lawrence Njenga have also been shown the door.
City stars chairman Justin Birichi confirmed the move and said it was the only option left for the club struggling at the bottom of the league. “The investors have bought shares in the club. We had no choice. We could not guarantee the survival of the club or attract top quality players to City Stars,” Birichi added.The investors are the owners of the largest Danish football-website bold.dk and are also involved in a number of Kenyan IT-startups, and the boot camp-event IPO48.org.
One of the new owners of the club Pierre Vendelboe noted that there was huge potential in Kenyan football following the sale of George “Blackberry Odhiambo to Randers FC in Denmark from Gor Mahia. The Dane said he expected more players to follow suit.
“There is huge talent in African football and I expect Kenyan players to follow Odhiambo’s example. Maybe City Stars could produce the next big name from Kenya,” Vendelboe added.
The Dane said their immediate target is to steer the club away from relegation danger. “That is going to be our first objective. We must do everything in our power to avoid being relegated into the Nationwide League. The first thing we had to do was to appoint a coach we thought is capable of getting the club away from the relegation end,” he added
Coach Ezekiel Akwana said he was delighted to take over the job at City Stars after being suspended by Sofapaka earlier in the month. “It’s a good opportunity to share my ideas with the players and see what we can do to save the club from going down,” he said.
City Stars are currently bottom of the log with eight points but the new owners are confident the club will survive relegation. Akwana noted that with the second half of the campaign coming up the club would avoid relegation.”There are several matches left and we will fight hard to ensure we do not lose and try and win most of our remaining league matches,”Akwana said.
The parties have agreed not to disclose the terms of the deal, but it has been confirmed, the deal is an asset buyout of the player contracts and the KPL-license of the Nairobi City Stars.
AllAfrica – All the Time
Continued here:
Kenya: Danes Buy Stars