Marked for Bernard Jairo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
Victor Omune and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match15 Aug 2026
1‑3 to Kenya Police, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Bernard Jairo lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Martin Okoth left the room before anybody could ask which.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan move for Cleo Ssetuba is in the works
Mathare United have made the call to AFC Leopards. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacob Onyango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Elvis Ronack gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Victor Omune and Mathare United agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Victor Omune was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
No place for Victor Omune in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Mathare United are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marked 7.61 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Mathare United had the best player on the pitch.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Bernard Jairo is in the works
Mathare United have made the call to Nairobi United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Erick Balecho is in the works
Mathare United have made the call to Bandari. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Half-satisfied: Martin Okoth on the draw
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Nairobi United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Benson Omalla commits to Nairobi United for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nairobi United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Bernard Jairo has come up in conversations Nairobi United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Shabana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Bandari have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Nairobi United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Mainge is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.