Ex-Gor Mahia CEO outlines what club need to do in wake of Champions League return

Former Gor Mahia Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Omondi Aduda has outlined ambitious plans to help the record Kenyan champions have a successful 2024/25 CAF Champions League campaign.

K’Ogalo will return to the Champions League action after lifting a record-extending 21st title with three matches to spare and ended up finishing the campaign with 73 points, eight more than second-placed Tusker, while Kenya Police finished third in the 18-team table with 57 points.

Despite winning the league last season, Gor Mahia did not participate in the lucrative competition after being barred by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) following their failure to pay money owed to three former players.

The recent success provides them with another opportunity to feature in the competition, where their best performance came in 1987 when they clinched the Nelson Mandela Cup (Africa Cup Winners Cup) after defeating Tunisian giants Esperance on an away goal rule following a 3-3 aggregate result.

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Gor Mahia Must Replace McKinstry

With the new CAF Interclub competitions format in its second season, the playoffs have been scrapped meaning any team losing in the second preliminary round is automatically bundled out of the Champions League and the winners of the second preliminary round directly qualify for the group stages.

According to Aduda, the new format makes it imperative for the clubs in the Champions League to ensure they prepare well if they harbour any ambitions of making it to group stages and it is not an exception to Gor Mahia.

To start with, Aduda believes, Gor Mahia must move with speed and fill the void left by coach Johnathan McKinstry, who quit, after guiding the club to a second successive title, to take up the vacant coaching role at the Gambia.

The former FKF CEO further warned the new coach must meet all the requirements by CAF to avoid raising confusion during their campaign.

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“Having parted ways with coach McKinstry, they (Gor Mahia) need to appoint a new replacement like yesterday, who must have the requisite qualifications in terms of the appropriate licence, experience in CAF Champions League competitions up to at least the group stages,” Aduda told SportsBoom.

“McKinstry did a great job, but now Gor Mahia must work out ways of getting a better replacement, a coach, who will come in and immediately integrate with the players without any struggle, a coach, who has been at the stage before, with this kind of a coach, then Gor Mahia can dream of having a good campaign.”

Reinforce the Squad and Early Preparations

According to Aduda, Gor Mahia must enter the transfer market to beef up their squad. Aduda opined the club must invest in at least every area of the playing unit to stand a chance of competing with the best in Africa.

“Gor Mahia must reinforce the current squad with talented, mature, and experienced players. The team needs an experienced goalkeeper with a good body stature, a left-footed centre-back, a box-to-box defensive midfielder, a versatile attacking midfielder/playmaker, speedy modern-day wingers (left and right), a robust clinical finisher, and lastly a second striker,” explained Aduda.

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Gor Mahia are currently relying on Benson Omalla as their lead striker, and the youngster helped them to the league title having scored 16 goals to emerge as the top scorer.

Aduda called on the club management to ensure early preparations given the short period before the Champions League kicks off.

“The club (team) needs to plan for early preparations and given the short period remaining before the kick-off slated for August 16th, I would propose they use the forthcoming CECAFA Kagame Cup and the invitational tournament in Enugu to ensure that both the new and old players jell from where the first eleven should be picked in readiness for the kick-off,” offered Aduda.

“An integral part of the early preparations requires funds, and it means the executive must urgently source additional money from what they receive from SportPesa/Azam TV sponsorships.”

“There is a need to ensure the travel arrangements are done in good time, all the travel documents obtained for all the players, visas where required applied for early enough.

The squad is not more than 28 players. These are enough to make the club have two formidable teams capable of playing in CAF and the league simultaneously.”

Gor Mahia is among the teams that have been invited to the regional Kagame Cup scheduled for July 20th to August 4th.

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With Gor Mahia having suffered travel hitches in previous campaigns, Aduda reminded the current office bearers to handle logistic matters with a lot of seriousness.

“The office should ensure accommodation logistics are dealt with early during away matches, bonuses paid in good time to avoid player go-slows, and ensure the players have the right playing equipment, especially the football boots for different weather and playing surfaces,” said Aduda.

Improve Levels of Players’ Fitness and Conditioning

Aduda challenged the office to work on the players’ fitness level, saying a portion of players in the current squad could not last 90 minutes of a competitive match.

“The office should ensure players' fitness and conditioning performance levels are improved to last the entire match period unlike now where some of the burnout, especially in the second half,” said Aduda. “The technical bench should work on imparting a winning mentality in the players.

“The fans should be encouraged to turn out in numbers during the home matches to give the team the home ground advantage, however, they must be educated on stadium behaviour to minimise sanctions from CAF like has happened in the past causing the club heavy fines.”

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Gor Mahia has previously endured a difficult run in the Champions League always failing to get to the group stages and beyond. Given the arrangements in the past could scale down to the playoffs in the Confederation Cup at least from where they have proceeded to qualify for the group stages.

The first of such qualifications was in 2018 when they beat SuperSport United on a 3-2 aggregate win followed again in 2019 where they dispatched New Stars United of Cameroon 2-1 on aggregate.

In the 2019 sojourn, K’Ogalo had a sterling performance in the group stages and qualified for the quarterfinals losing to RS Berkane of Morocco.

Their last attempt in the 2021/22 season fell at the return leg against Napsa Stars when a last-second penalty awarded to the Zambian outfit saw the team bow out.

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