National Super League side Vihiga United and their Women's Premier League counterparts Vihiga Queens suffered yet another blow after the Vihiga County government told them to source for funds from external donors for the remainder of the season.
Club president Kahi Indimuli said: “We have to look for funds to facilitate our activities for the remaining matches following a text for Chief Officer Sports Dominic Luvavo that the county is not going to fund us going forward.”
"This spells doom for clubs whose players and technical benches have gone for up to four months without pay. At times some officials and I have been forced to dig deep into our pockets to foot some of our most urgent bills."
United are third on the National Super League table with 49 points behind Bidco (54) and Nairobi City Stars (61) while Queens are yet to play in the new WPL season, which started last weekend.
Luvavo said the Controller of Budget, Margaret Nyakango, had raised queries on why the players were on the Vihiga County payroll yet were not employees.
“We didn’t want to have issues with the Controller of Budget so we decided to develop a Sports Fund that will facilitate all that is needed by the two teams; Vihiga United and Vihiga Queens, going forward,” Luvavo said.
"With the Fund, we are going to have a kitty allocated to a well-constituted committee, who will oversee all of the teams' activities. That’s the only way we can rescue these teams."
The Chief Officer admitted that the two teams have been through hell and will have to look for alternative sources of funds until the beginning of the 2020/2021 financial year on July 1.
“We have not withdrawn our support but we are only putting in proper mechanisms to ensure our teams will be well-financed with through the Sports Fund,” Luvavo assured the team.