Are Gor Mahia Financial initiatives being sustained ?
New reports today suggest that yet again there is trouble in the Gor Mahia camp due to non-payment of salaries. This time the players have not only staged a go slow, but they have skipped training and gone on strike.
“We have done our part but the office is letting us down by not paying us on time. Last Sunday, after the match against KCB, no one talked to us about this issues and we agreed to go on strike on Tuesday (yesterday),” a player said to the Standard.
The player said they are disappointed by the fact that while the club officials received Sh2 million as prize money for finishing runners-up in the CECAFA Cup, the players have not received any money. This leaves fans quizzical because Gor Mahia’s travel expenses were paid for by a combination of the Harambee money raised before the tournament and funds from the Ministry of sports. CECAFA paid for hotel expenses. So where has the prize money gone?
And this comes a day before they are due to play Ushuru FC in a midweek encounter scheduled for Wednesday 4pm at City stadium.
Asked whether they will turn up for today’s fixture, the player said:
“The game is not even on our minds. We are more focused on getting paid and we are therefore disappointed that no one has even bothered to talk to us.”
Inactivity with Financial Initiatives
When the SACCO project was officially launched, this column wrote an article stating that Gor Mahia officials typically just launch new initiatives then sit back and expect fans to come forward with money. They do not promote the initiatives and rarely do they persuade fans by being accountable and transparent with funds. In fact one current official was brazen enough to state “Transparency is for members only”.
This is comical when you consider that many fans who have not contributed their hard earned money are hesitating precisely because they want to see transparency first. The fans have been asking for transparency for so long that many are tired of mentioning it.
The Gor Biro bread was launched with a lot of fanfare. But since then, it has not been promoted by the club at all. And the club has not seen it fit to update fans on how much money was raised. The last report came one month after it was launched and it stated that Gor Mahia had only received Ksh 60,000 which falls far short of projections. Yet the club has still not seen it fit to promote the sales of the bread.
The SACCO was launched with what seemed like a high level of professionalism with corporate bigwigs put in charge. But that too has become moribund because the club stopped promoting it or persuading fans to join. The management team appointed to run the SACCO us hardly active in encouraging fans to join. At the very least they could produce audited accounts showing how much has been collected and how much has been disbursed to the club. This alone would encourage many more fans to join the SACCO
The 350100 paybill number, which started with a lot of promise, is hardly promoted and the club no longer accounts for whatever money they receive. Other initiatives like membership drives were also launched and left moribund, not to mention merchandize sales which are basically non-existent. The latter is a starke contrast from 2010 when Gor Mahia jerseys were selling at a break neck pace.
So for the umpteenth time, players have gone on strike due to unpaid salaries.
Very useless officials they have outlived their usefulness it’s time we ‘ get a new broom which sweeps best’
Club inaporwa na viongozi, afadhali uchaguzi uje na tuchaguane upya.
If Gor Sacco fails;all matters business should be handed to Kikuyu businessmen;they can do better.In the meantime like any other business the key word here is;Patience.Sticking with something through ups and down.But Sacco mgmt should talk;give us feedback;they can go learn from Equity coz if they were employees there they would do better.
To be honest I saw this coming…it’s so predictable of this office.
We should demand accountability on how the price money was spent,the harambee collection and the last 2 or so home game gate collections.
To the office..Please desist from calling on us fans whenever you need a bailout when you can’t even be answerable to how you expend the cash that you get!!
What is posted by the author here is grossly misleading on the SACCO with headline of “INACTIVITY WITH FINANCIAL INITIATIVES”.
Let us all join SACCO which is a long term solution. What I can confirm is that Gor Mahia SACCO is very active as I have been receiving updates. The Chair of the SACCO is doing a good job but at the moment, SACCO cannot offer immediate solution to the club. This is a long term initiative that will offer solution to the club and we as fans must be patient with this noble objective.
SACCO was just launched the other day. Have all the Gor Mahia bloggers joined SACCO or waiting just to criticise and write baggage-in-baggage-out (BIBO)? Let all bloggers in this site join this good initiative. I am a member.
Running clubs like Gor Mahia and AFC is not just a walk into the park but let us also give credit to the office led by Mr. Ambrose Rachier. He as a person has done pretty well with even his finances as the Chairman of the club. Our club is not being sponsored by any corporate entities but we have survived this far and this is because of the Chairman.
What Mr. Ambrose Rachier does not have are foot soldiers to help him achieve the bigger milestones.
Let us all join Gor Mahia SACCO in large numbers and continue eating Gor Mahia Bread.
No one is doubting the EC led by Rachier,As a matter of fact,the EC is doing an excellent job by all standards given the challenges the club is facing of lack of sponsorship.I must give thumps up to Rachier and his group,lets give credit where its due gentlemen.
However the EC needs to improve on communication.As we speak no one knows how the bread thing is doing,how much is collected weekly or monthly and how its spent.No one knows ho much is collected on gate collections and how its spent.Financial accountability is an important aspect of any business.It costs nothing to post the clubs revenues and expenditures on this site by the EC.Am very certain that Gor can confortably generate 5 million everymonth from the following
1. 2 million from gate collections (two home matches every month).
2. 1 million from the bread partnership (if proper campaign and promotion is done)
3. 1 million from Supersport (monthly grant)
4. 1 million from sale of club merchandise (if loopholes are sealed)
Mwakio, well put but a point of correction to the FOT SOLDIERS. He has enough of stomach soldiers whom he has condorned. take a look at the so called SCOUTS, very old useless dirty goons. why not take young energetic youth and train them for security and health basics??? infact G4S was willing to give a hand free of charge. I adviced the office but no one was willing, Why – because they cant let go the Cow that they milk.
secondly, I all Fans coming to the match today to part with an extra 200/= which a special Kitty managed by Ambrose Rachier or Mwakio ( will you be there?) shall be given directly to the players.
Mwakio kuja na kikapu.
The best thing we can do is to devolve the financial aspects from the day-to-day running of the club. It has been proved that the current EC as constituted cannot promote the club or has not ideas on how to make our club self-sufficient. Maybe the running of the club takes too much energy and time for them to concentrate on the promotion of it.
What if we had trusted fans to take over the promotion of the club e.g. someone like Jaro Soja can be used effectively to promote the bread, Anelka to promote the membership , someone else the SACCO etc.
As much as some of us didn’t like the former CEO he had a business acumen and got us the bread idea, the membership idea as well as the insurance through Chase Bank. But since he left even the talk of sponsorship is dead.
Our former SG tried to bring in some order but look at the way he was hounded out of the office. As it is now Gor only needs a Chairman, Deputy and SEc Gen as elected office bearers. The rest like CEO, treasurer/finance, PR/marketing can be volunteers or employees with targets to achieve by the end of the year else we get others who can
This site should stop peddling baseless rumours. Everytime Gor wins big in prize money this so called ‘player’ always turns up! Why don’t you get in touch with the club captain who’s responsibility it is to communicate over the players welfare. It’s obvious this site is operated in conjunction with some of these players. If the players have not been paid then their contracts give them leeway to take certain courses of action, one which is NOT to run to the next rumour peddling website. I believe if these issues were as serious as ur trying to make them look then the Coach could have commented on them. Otherwise the affected players have the right to boycott any training or even hold Gor culpable of a contact breach.
So Admin I think you should style up and be more professional. If what this player is telling is the truth then there is no reason he should hide in dark corners. The point is that these players sign contracts and they are not helpless as your trying to make it look.
The EC has done it’s part and started several financial packages to help the playing arm of Gor Mahia. I however still believe that these projects were not well thought of, but that does not take away the fact that the EC has done it’s part. Let the fans respond to these initiatives. Personally I do not want to join Gor SACCO but I would suggest;
For one if I wanted to contribute to Olunga’s or Kagere’s account in the SACCO what should I do? I am using this as an example. My contribution could be directed to several players. This might be argued as discriminating in some quarters but wasn’t there a suggestion on adopt a player/s. My contribution to MPESA does not guarantee the money reaching the player/s since no accounting is ever published by the officials. I do not necessarily need to know the player/s account numbers but have a system in place where I can Mpesa directly to the (of choice) accounts. Let the Adopt a player be effected but with a cup so that you do not have one player with ten billion shillings and the next with none. But let it also not force us to contribute to dead beat players.
Dinga I think you are in denial. The players did go on strike. It has been reported by every news outlet including Nation and Standard. Officials have not denied it.
It is a fact that Walusimbi went on strike 2 months ago and refused to travel with the team. None other thasn Nuttall also spoke about late payments of salaries a short time ago. These players are to be commended because they keep playing even when not payed.
Denials will not help the club. These players will leave in December if the club keeps paying them late.
Why EC, request the KPL, for mid-week Matches to be played a bit late in the day to allow Fans who are on duty get time to attand the Matches of late I have seen some Matches were being played at night with Light?