Feuds rock Gor Mahia over neglected signing fees and salary arrears

A bitter war is silently raging at Kenya’s most decorated football club Gor Mahia between players who are owed months in salaries and the management.

Another set of players numbering up to ten are equally up in arms in a separate agitation for their signing fees that has been neglected after they put pen to paper.

Players now want their pending monies to be paid in full in the wake of K’Ogalo officials embarking on a fresh recruitment.

The club has already signed a 31 year-old goalkeeper from West Africa with a signing fee rumored to be Ksh1.8 million.

Yet a number of players who have toiled for the club for years are still waiting for their bumper signing fees promised to them during courtship.

The players who requested anonymity for fear of victimization during the transfer window are planning a boycott this coming week.

They will stage a sit in either during their scheduled training sessions or their next league assignment.

“Some of these officials spring to life when the transfer window opens because that is when they make money from player sales and signings. After that they cannot even answer a phone call from the players. Now they are bringing new players and paying really huge figures in sign on fees yet some of us were given partial payments. We just want them to deal with us fairly,” one player said on Sunday morning

Gor Mahia’s monetary issues have become innumerable and have largely contributed to the team’s stunted progress. Their contemporaries in East Africa have made significant progress but K’Ogalo seem to have engaged a reverse gear.

An ongoing funds drive to raise Ksh200 million ostensibly to jump start the club has hit a snag as fans who are supposed to contribute punch holes into the project.

The officials are equally divided with Treasurer Dolphina Odhiambo suggesting the initiative was not properly mooted.

The club has been seeking audience with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga to endorse the initiative and breathe life into it but the patron is not keen.

Chairrman Ambrose Rachier said: “We are planning to give the drive a proper launch so that it can take off and net the funds needed to aid this great club.”

His ‘planned’ endorsement of the KSh200 million drive has failed to happen twice in the recent past and the coffers remain nearly empty.