The sight of a haggard, impoverished Maurice Odumbe breaking down on national television as he recounted the heartrending story of his fall from grace during an interview sometime in January this year was a startling reminder of just how fickle all the money, fame and glory that comes with modern day sports can be. Viewers, and indeed many of his fans, were shocked to see a player who not so many years ago was the poster boy of the Kenyan national cricket team, now stripped bare of the infamous majestic flamboyance that once defined his lifestyle on and off the crease.
If not for his eloquent speech, then that man in an ill-fitting shirt on the bench with renowned award winning journalist Jeff Koinange during that TV interview could as well have been one of the many vagabonds that trawl the streets of Nairobi day and night scavenging for a livelihood.
But this was the once world famous Maurice Odumbe; now almost unrecognisable to the hordes of cricket fans who barely a decade ago worshipped the ground upon which he walked.
At one point during the interview, Odumbe wondered aloud in a voice that trailed off whether there wasn’t anybody out there who could at least offer him a job to make tea. “Is that asking for too much?” he riposted in self-trepidation.
Of course Odumbe’s well documented story of “riches to rags” – in every sense of the phrase – touched off national empathy, especially across the blogosphere and on social media, that saw an outpouring of emotions and even pledges to help the disgraced cricket star to get back on his feet again.
The strange bit, however, is that in this part of the world, Odumbe’s is not a very unique but rather the more classical case of illustrious Kenyan athletes of yesteryear who, for the folly of failing to set aside part of their great windfall for a rainy day, have fallen on hard times.
The story of world beating middle distance and cross country champion, John Ngugi, the once fearsome Hit Squad pugilist Suleiman Bilali, now infirm and living in squalor, and the towering former Harambee Stars defender George Waweru, who took to stupefying alcoholism a few years ago, are some of few illustrations that will suffice.
Many other celebrated Kenya athletes, before and after them, have wasted away shortly after the applause from their adoring fans stopped.
In Kenyan sports, retirement, it seems, must be quite tough if the staggering statistics of athletes who failed to outlive the illusionary glamour of their heydays is anything to go by.
It’s a subject that many former athletes, sports experts and journalists alike have broached over in an attempt to understand why so many sportsmen and women in Kenya often steal and thrive in the limelight at their prime only to regress into oblivion as fast as they rose to fame.
In an article published in the Daily Nation of October 12, 2013, retired sports journalist Roy Gachuhi interrogated William Obwaka, one of the finest Kenyan footballers of the 1980s, now medical doctor, over the same topic.
“There must be something that happens after the applause goes down. Whatever it is, it is an issue that I have to try to understand,” Obwaka is quoted in the article in his inference to several of his former colleagues on the pitch who are now long departed.
Obwaka then goes on to ruminate as to what often leads many a football player (and other sports personalities) to bankruptcy. He says:
“It is a sorry state of affairs. It is quite depressing from looking at the long list of people who have gone down after doing great work for their clubs and the national team. “In sports, as it is in other performing arts such as music and acting, you are constantly in the limelight. And there is so much going for you that you live in an illusionary world.
“You get a false sense of invincibility. You get consumed in the glamour that the media bestows on you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. Your playing time is limited… then your window closes. If this finds you not having planned for it, you have a problem.
“Now there is no applause and you don’t know any other trade except the one which is behind you. Most likely, you go into drugs and alcohol as an alternative to the applause. The road down is very steep,” he concludes.
(In our next issue how some Kenyan sports personalities are now big investors, perhaps learning from the sins of their colleagues before them)
Utility
Why professional sports personalities go broke
The average professional athlete in Kenya makes in one season, especially for the champions, of course, is more than what most of their countrymen will earn in their lifetimes. They have recently got wiser and, besides flaunting their earnings, are also investing. It hasn’t always been that way, however. Despite their staggering salaries, many of these stars end up broke. Here are five possible reasons why this is:
Overspending
Sports personalities spend like mad, and blow their savings too rapidly. They see their salaries as infinite, like they won’t end, like they can’t spend it all. But if one is earning, say Sh40 million a year, by the time one is done paying agents and the taxman, the amount left to spend “freely” goes down significantly.
Career duration
The average career span of an athlete, footballer or boxer is about 10 and 15 years respectively. The “shelf life” of athletes is tiny. Professionals in this industry have a small window to make their millions, and if they don’t they cannot survive on their savings for very long (even if they saved responsibly).
A lack of financial knowledge
Athletes see prominent people spending money, and they believe that their spending pattern should be the same. However, athletes fail to take into account that those prominent members have spent lifetimes learning about financial responsibility and budget strategies.
Poor investment decisions
Athletes are targets for poor investment pitches. He said, “Chronic over-allocation into real estate and bad private equity is the number one problem in terms of a financial meltdown. And I’ve never seen more people come to me about raising money for those kinds of deals than athletes.”
Hanging with a bad crowd
Athletes often do try to be responsible with their savings. However, they pick the wrong financial advisors. Wealth management experts say athletes often don’t know who manages their savings. He said that he frequently asks players how they’re doing (financially), and they’ll often respond, “I have no idea. All the bills are paid by someone else.”
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