Kenya leads way in ending blight of corruption in African football

The most encouraging development for the future of African football will be confirmed in Johannesburg tomorrow – and has nothing to do with the World Cup. Certainly it is a boon for the continent that South African organisers have belied prophesies of doom by staging a safe and successful tournament, and the social and economic effects of the image revamp, even more than the achievement, could be far-reaching.

But for African football specifically, the most significant news from South Africa will come tomorrow when representatives of the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) sign an improved television rights deal with the satellite broadcaster SuperSport, proving that there is a cure to the blight that continues to suppress potential across most of the continent – the blight of corruption and mismanagement.

Africa is a football-mad continent but has only ever sent three teams to the World Cup quarter-finals. It had six sides at the 2010 tournament but mustered only four wins – the strong showing of Ghana, a country with a good FA and innovative clubs, cannot mask the general trend of underachievements, including by Cameroon and Nigeria, countries who boast bountiful talent but finished bottom of their groups. When it comes to African football, tales of corruption, incompetence and infighting remain more common than success stories.

"Too many national associations are failing African football," Nicholas Musonye, general secretary of the Council of East and Central African Football Associations, says. "We cannot have strong national teams without strong leagues but we do not have strong leagues because too often the associations are run by the wrong people, people who get involved for politics or money, not for football. Until we sort ourselves out, we will have the same old circus."

The KPL represents a great example of African football sorting itself out, a successful rebellion by people who genuinely care about football against the powerful people seeking to hijack it for their own ends. Over the past decade the hijacking has at times been so blatant as to be farcical – an investigation into corruption in the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) in 2005 found that from the first eight matches played by the national team following the arrival of a new president "there was not a single penny banked by the treasurer as proceeds from gate receipts". There were also reports of top KFF officials acting as unregistered agents to sell players abroad and embezzling funds given by Fifa. Even 30 computers donated by Fifa disappeared.

Kenya's clubs, sick of being hindered rather than helped by their federation, began agitating for reform and, in the face of repeated sabotage and intimidation by the KFF, eventually took over the running of the domestic league, forming, in 2008, the country's first professional league, the KPL, and only the second one in the continent, after the South African Super League, to be owned entirely by clubs.

"When you have a company that owns the league and the 16 clubs are equal shareholders and equal decision‑makers, then you automatically have three things," Bob Munro, chairman of Mathare United and a KPL official, says.

"First, you have complete accountability, because you basically have 16 auditors as every shilling that comes in belongs to the clubs together and they sit and decide how best to allocate it – how much goes to the clubs, how much to a common pool for staff, referees, marketing and so on. Secondly, you have complete transparency because there are no secrets when there are 16 owners. And, thirdly, you automatically have fair play – if any official or referee tries to favour one club, the 15 others will fire them. Fair play, financial accountability and democratic transparency, that's all you need to have good football management."

The improved management has meant a competition with renewed integrity that, in turn, has stimulated interest from supporters and, crucially, sponsors and television. SuperSport started screening it from its inception and have been so impressed that they have called the clubs to South Africa this week to offer an improvement on the existing $5.5m (£3.6m) four-year deal, which still had almost half its term to run.

"The KPL is a great success story and other countries in the region have taken note," Musonye says. "I know that clubs in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia are looking at doing something similar."

In West Africa too, similar moves are afoot. Earlier this decade Senegalese football nearly collapsed under the weight of corruption as opportunistic officials tried to profit from the national team's success at the 2002 World Cup. The shambles ultimately led to 12 of the country's leading clubs withdrawing from the domestic league in protest and forming a "parallel tournament". Their concerted display of power eventually forced change and a purge of inept or bent officials – 29 were ousted from the Fédération Sénégalaise de Football (FSF) in 2008. Since that year the country has a professional league that, although owned by the federation rather the clubs, has restored optimism to the country's football community.

Successes are still too few. Even in Kenya big challenges remain.

While the KPL thrives, the national team is still in the clutches of self‑serving officials – not the KFF, but Football Kenya Limited, which, after a long legal battle, won the right to be recognised by Fifa as the country's national association. "They are no better than the KFF," Elias Makori, sports editor of Kenya's largest‑circulation newspaper The Nation, says. "In fact, they are worse, because they are a private company comprising just three people."

Their self-interest is institutionalised. "The clubs never agreed to the new statutes for their own organisation," Munro says. "For example, the new statutes drafted by only two FKL officials included such lovely things like no candidate can be older than 58 or younger than 40. Can you guess what age range those two officials are in?"

This week Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, requested that the FKL step aside and let clubs vote for new officials. It was only a request, mind, because Odinga knows that any more forceful move by him would incur the wrath of Fifa, who are fundamentalists when it comes to upholding their ban on governmental interference in football – sometimes with the effect that they prevent reform. The Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, found that out recently when, after the Super Eagles' misadventure in South Africa, and the alleged mis-use of most of the country's World Cup budget, he announced the team would be withdrawn from international competition while the Nigerian Football Federation "put its house in order". This was not a populist fit of pique – unlike when the governments of Benin and Guinea announced the disbandment of their national teams this year following poor performances – it was a sign of his determination to eradicate the mismanagement that has systematically prevented a country of more than 150m people from fielding a team that reflects the talent at its disposal. Johnson had to backtrack and though police have since been sent into the NFF to investigate fraud, many Nigerians fear Fifa's hardline approach has impeded true change. That is a common complaint.

"What Fifa needs to do is stop insisting on no government interference and instead insist on good governance," Makori says. "It needs to help the right people and thwart the opportunists by drawing up a model constitution for all its associations and demanding that it is respected. If the status quo remains, it is hard not to be pessimistic."