Barcelona are upto second place inthe laliga table after they thrashed Sevilla 4-0 at the camp nou.Suarez have  the blaugrana the lead with a spectacular bicycle kick,followed by goals from vidal and dembele inthe first half.Lionel messi made sure of the points inthe 78th minute but the drama wasn’t over yet as 20 year old uruguayan Araujo was sent off fourteen minutes into his debut after a foul on chicharito hernandez.Barca also saw Ousmane dembele see red while trying to make a case for the youngster.Barca are now two points behind real madrid a point above Atletico madrid.Sevilla are still in a europa league spot in 6th place.

Juventus go top of the serie A table after a 2-1 over inter milan who formerly held that position in a thrilling and competitive game.Sarri’s men took the lead early inthe game with the goal coming on from a suprise starter in Paulo Dybala but inter leveled things up with a penalty from an Argentinian of their own in Lautaro Martinez after De ligt who has had a somewhat rocky start to his Juve career was judged to have handled the ball inthe penalty area.Juve once again took the lead with a well taken goal from another Argentine in Gonazalo Higuain who had been visibily agitated inthe first half while he sat onthe bench.Conte’s inter will feel a bit hard done by as they could have drawn level inthe later stages but still know that this is a tittle race that might aswell go to that game of the season.Juve are now a point ahead of inter who have 18 points.

After both his club and country seemigly deserted the player,Kenyan international defender Philemon Otieno underwent surgery on thursday last week and is continuing with physiotherapy.

Otieno will be out of competitive action for four months.

After a petition by a human rights activist group for the government to treat the player was also ignored, the 26-year-old appealed for help to friends and well-wishers.

According to Nairobi news his international teamate micheal olunga led the call for help and also contributed 30,000 shillings himself.

Alongside family members, Other Harambee Stars players who made contributions include Francis Kahata, Aboud Omar, Musa Mohammed, Johanna Omollo, Joash Onyango and Aboud Omar.

The message was passed over to the sportpesa employees on Wednesday by the chief executive Ronald Karauri.

“I dont know what to say, but it appears this journey cannot continue. Im disappointed, “he said.

SportPesa last week announced it had closed operations in Kenya in the wake of a tax dispute with the government.

It is not possible to operate under the new tax rules. This has become a hostile business environment, the company said in a statement.

The dispute between SportPesa and the government has been on for three months now ever since the government withdrew licences of 15 betting firms it claimed were not paying taxes as required.

SportPesas exit also affects sponsorship deals it had signed with several football entities including Gor Mahia, AFC Leopards, Kenyan Premier League and Football Kenya Federation valued at hundreds of millions.

The main issue affecting kenyan football is money.Almost every team inthe top league has been in a financial.Players and coaches are not getting paid and this reflects on their on pitch performances which are below average.

This can be solved if private investors take over clubs and put maximum effort into making them better and competitive.Wazito fc and Mt.kenya united were taken over at the sametime by diffrent investors who promised the same things yet it seems that the Mt.Kenya united owner has continued widening the hole left by his predecesors.
Wazito owner Ricardo Badoer onthe other hand has been delivering on his promises and the team look set to achieve promotion back into the top flight.

We need Multi-Millionares and big companies such as Safaricom and media groups to take over football clubs and develop a proper competitive league.This obviously a big risk and just like any other business you need to take risks to enjoy rewards.We are falling further and further behind other teams in Africa like Enyimba,Horoya,Vipers and Pyramids have been all taken over by private investors inthe last couple of years and have all been a success.

The Indian super league is a great example it was launched in 2013 by IMG reliance,star sports and the all India football federation.It is a closed league with ten teams owned by businessmen,former cricket players and bollywood stars.The ISL’s marketing strategies have been impressive all teams now fill up big stadium and tv audiences are rising year after year in a society that sees cricket as a gift from God it is amazing to see how league is being run.The I league that still runs was formed in 1996 and struggled due to lack of popularity and poor marketing.The success of the ISL has has been reflected on the national team at all levels with both the youth teams and the first team enjoying a great deal of success.Good young players are being produced locally developed coaches are onthe rise aswell.

Both Australia and the US who both have the same league format are now begining to produce a cluster of youngsters on a regular basis.

A more competive league means teams will have proper academies and the flow of talent will be unbelivable.Scouting will be well done and this will help both inthe development of local coaches and the national team at all levels.Young people are the future and investment into them is needed.

German football is booming, reaping the rewards of the strategy drawn up after their dismal performances at Euro 2000, when Germany finished bottom of their group. Forced into an overhaul of youth football, the DFB, the Bundesliga and the clubs decided that the development of more technically proficient homegrown players would be in everyone’s best interests. This led to the creation of academies right across the top two divisions and the results have been briliant.

We all know how much kenyans love football,According to 2017 statistics Kenya was inthe top two nations when it came to the viewership of top Epl sides Manchester United and Arsenal.

Football in kenya is not well marketed,the Sportpesa cup and Chapa Dimba were well advertised by sportpesa and Safaricom respectively and it showed with the high number of turnout.

These local companies whom more than 90% of their customers are Kenyans should be doing more for the community and investing into football rather than throwing money at greedy chairmans inform of spornsorships.It will all good PR so it is a win win.

At the end of the day one thing should be clear that it doesn’t matter how much petrol you put into a car if the driver is bad you’ll probably end up crashing,the same can be said for kenyan football.

So the caf champions league final will be contested between Esperance and Wydad.This adds to the long standing tradition of north African dominance in African football which has seen clubs from that region win 89 continental trophies.The first Caf organized event took place inthe 1964-65 season it took four years for a north African team to make the final it was Al ismaily from egypt in 1968 the won it infront of 130,000 fans at the Naser stadium in Cairo.Ghal el mahalla from egypt made the final in 1974 but lost and Mc Alger won the competition in 1976.North African dominance begun inthe 1980s where from 1981-1994 saw a north African team win the competition exept for 1983 where Al ahly lost to Asante Kotoko from Ghana.This period saw Raja,Wydad,Esperance,Zamalek and Club Africain all win tittles.It is similar story inthe much younger Caf confedarations cup which has seen ten out of it’s fourteen instalments being won by North African teams.The two main factors are money and Fanbases.

1.Money
North African teams generate yearly incomes of more than $10 million.Last year saw record Wydad Casablanca generate $12 million which is a club record and Champions league winners Esperance generated $9 million.Cairo based sides Al ahly and Zamalek generate much larger sums than that.Pyramids of Egypt were recently taken over by a saudi billionare and they spent more than $50 million on transfers alone which is unheard of in Africa With that much money at disposal north African teams tend to have better infrastracture and can attract better quality players A prime example is Anice Badri at esperance the Tunisian midfielder is a Lyon academy graduate and has been senastional since he joined the Tunisian giants as they push for a second champions league tittle in two years other African countries normally rely on the government for money which means when the goverments don’t have money then their is no money and this is the case most of the time. The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, is Nigerian,” Andrew Randa, a Nigerian journalist who reports on the Nigerian Premier Football League said.
“He was rumoured to have wanted to take over Arsenal FC twice, and Nigerians ask why he cannot invest in Kano Pillars, a club from his home region? But football is political in Nigeria, it is used as a bargaining chip. Most Nigerian clubs revolve around government agencies.”“For now, everything is in the hands of government; but there will be significant improvement the time private investors, with real commitment, come in and own [a] greater percentage of the shares. Government cannot continue to run every aspect of the system, it’s not possible at all,”Christian Chukwu a former nigerian national team coach told The Independent of Nigeria.Speaking to DW,Gabon striker Chico Sassou said,“Here in Gabon, football is organised by the state. When the state has problems, as a player, you get less money.”
This seems to be changing though as more teams are being taken over by wealthy individuals for example Enyimba in Nigeria who have a patnership with english premier league side West ham United and Guinea’s Horoya AC, which is owned by millionaire Antonio Souaré.
He ensures Horoya has a budget of $5 million and is also financing a brand new stadium and a state of the art football academy.
In East Africa, diversified revenue streams are slowly being established. The Ugandan Premier League recently signed a 10-year, $7-million TV deal with Chinese television channel StarTimes. The Kenyan Premier League has developed a partnership with La Liga, which it consults concerning television deals as well.
A club in the second division in Tunisia like Beja has facilities that are better than most first division teams in Africa.

2.Fanbase
This where the age old phrase without fans football is nothing comes to lighf.Even when the money and proper facilities are in place like in South Africa.
During the tail end of the 1990s, the ultra movement filtered down from Europe to North Africa. As a result, organised groups of supporters began choreographing chants, displaying tifos and travelling thousands of kilometres to away matches.
Teams like Raja and Wydad are respected all over the world for this.
The first ultra groups appeared in Tunisia and Morocco before spreading to Egypt and Algeria.
There’s a fear factor and mental block when most African teams travel to North Africa it happens year after year.Teams mostly play in empty stadiums during home matches but North African stadiums harbour volcanic atmospheres that intimidate visitors.
Sundowns’ coach, Pitso Mosimane, further fleshed out the intimidation his side experienced when playing in Algeria.
“The big thing about North Africans is all about the intimidation. When we were playing Setif, I remember at one stage one of my players was running down the line from the right side and the bottles were dropping from the top. I mean, how do you keep playing?”
Mosimane further indicated that Zamalek supporters issued death threats to his players leading up to the final of the 2016 CAF Champions League final the Brazilians won.
“There have been messages sent to the players, whoever has Instagram, Facebook, Twitter… they’ve received death threats, all of them.”
Following the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, the governments of both nations imposed caps on attendance, slightly reducing the advantage.

With their superior fanbases and financial muscle Arab clubs look more and more unstoppable year after year.