the not so coke side of life

normally when one talks about government intervention, one assumes this is some private business being nationalised, or refinanced on account of the project, or consequences of the business failing costing too much political capital for the governemt in question to withstand.

Well with this government all we need for an intervention is that the minister is not happy with proceedings. More from my collegue here and from the row in the video embedded below.





And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Money Money Money!

How many times have followers of the game heard this. "Unfortunately due to the inability to raise our x million shilling budget due to the lack opf response from sponsor y( whose fault it is entirely for this debacle) , we have had to cancel our participation from international competition z"

Anyway it seems the Kenya Hockey Union has very unfortunately had to pull out that excuse again as it has been reported that they have pulled Kenya's national team out of the Africa Cup of Nations hockey tornament in Accra. The sponsor y in this case being the government whom they have accused of failing to respond to their plees to part finance their 11 million shilling budget for the trip. The Commisioner of Sports on the othert hand was not slow to pull out the classic excuse of 'being unaware' of any such request presented by the Kenya Hockey Union.

Kenya's absence from the Africa cup means they misss out on the qualifying tournament fro the World Championships, and thus by default kenya miss the World Championships, themselves as well as a ranking event for possible inclusion in the next Commonwealth games in India.

U 19 World Cup preparations

With the U19 World Cup set to be hosted in kenya in 2010, the Coast Province Cricket Association is continuing to receive the benefits of the the new management in Kenyan Crickert with the Coast Gymkhana set to become the province's second international standard cricket venue after Mombasa Sports Club. This is to prepare the ground and, the city of Mombasa to host the ICC event which will see the best U19 talents from all over the World converge in Kenya for the tournament in what should be the highest profile cricket event on Kenyan soil since the 2003 World Cup

As far as player preparation is concerned, Cricket Kenya might want to up the ante with a weakened team failing to dominate at the recent regional qualifiers . However, exam issues aside that the prebiuos U19 crop were unable to qualify for the previuos World Cup, (Namibia and Uganda upstaging them) is one of several things that will probably weigh on the minds of the Kenyans as they take their place as tournament hosts, as well as the disatsrous showing of the lasty Kenya u19 team to play at an u19 World Cup (New Zealand 2001).

EDIT:

I can now confirm that several grounds in Mombasa, Nairobi and indeed Nakuru are getting a fcelift for the U19 World Cup and the money is all coming out of Cricket kenya's pocket. These include, the Rift Valley Sports Club, Greensteds School (both Nakuru), which will be ditching astroturf for proper grass wickets.

As a former Greenie student this leaves me eondering what this means for the other sports that regularly use that field ie. Rugby, Football, Hockey etc...