EXCLUSIVE: Sofapaka CEO Ronald Okoth outlines ambitious plans after relegation scare

Batoto ba Mungu were on the edge of surrendering their 15-year status in the top-flight after a poor start to the 2023/24 season saw them fight relegation from the opening week until the last day.

They finished the Premier League season in position 16 of the 18-team table and had to play National Super League (NSL) side Naivas FC in a two-legged promotion playoff to determine their fate.

Sofapaka, who won the Kenyan league title in the debut season in 2009, managed to secure their status after beating Naivas 2-0 on aggregate. They won the first leg 1-0 courtesy of a goal from Jacob Ochieng, before winning the return leg 1-0 via an Andre Lalama strike.

Sofapaka have learnt from past mistakes

According to the club’s CEO Okoth, Batoto ba Mungu will ensure they don’t get themselves embroiled in the relegation battle adding it was the worst campaign the club has ever endured since being promoted to the top-flight.

“First of all, I must apologise to our fan base because of the season we went through, they don’t deserve it, we don’t deserve to fight against relegation, it was the worst season for Sofapaka, but we want to dust ourselves and get ready for the new season,” Okoth told Flashscore. “We want to promise them (fans) it will never happen again.”

“It has been a season full of ups and downs but amidst it, we managed to meet our number one objective which was to survive relegation it was a tough playoff fixture against Naivas, a very good team, with good players and ambitious but again at the end of the day we were banking on our qualities as well as our characters.”

Okoth, who previously turned out for Premier League champions Gor Mahia, and Western Stima among other teams before hanging up his boots, further explained what helped Sofapaka to prevail over Naivas.

“We had to rely on our experienced players and the coaches to be able to get maximum points needed and I must commend the playing unit and also our technical bench led by Ezekiel (Akwana) for the effort and the sacrifice they did put in because we worked as a team.

“We worked as a unit and were able to achieve our main objective of the season, which was to survive relegation and to win the playoff.”

Sofapaka will plan to do things differently

According to Okoth, Sofapaka have already put in place plans to avoid the scenario from last season insisting they will have to ensure they put everything or order.

“Going forward we have learnt from our mistakes and we are planning to do things differently, I think for us to ensure we don’t find ourselves in such a challenging situation again, we will have to ensure that we probably put a lot of things for us to ensure the team operates,” added Okoth.

“The main key thing is to secure sponsorship for next season, and we are calling out on all the sponsors, who would like to partner with us and be our shirt sponsors to probably reach out, and we are also reaching out to them so that we can work out on something.”

Okoth continued: “Getting sponsorship will be good because you know when the team is financially stable it will help boost the morale of the players, motivation is very key towards ensuring good performance in the future, so getting sponsorship will be the number one top priority and it goes hand in hand with fan engagement.”

Okoth further revealed Sofapaka’s plans to engage with their fans saying it will be the key to a successful campaign. “We need to recruit a lot of fans to be able to support the club, we tried in the past few months before the league came to a close and we could see there is a lot of potential with regards to fans being able to associate with the club.

“So fan engagement is key, fan recruitment and membership we will be launching that, we are already working on that and it goes hand in hand with merchandise sales because again with fans they need to be branded in our colours.

“I think whenever we have fans coming on board to support us, I think it will give the boys a lot of motivation to the boys and the identity of the club will be outside there for everyone to see.”

On whether they have a plan to strengthen their squad, Okoth said: “We will try to ensure that we beef up our squad with more players we had a very lean team this season, very few players, who fought hard for the badge and they equally need support from other players, and I think the bench (I am 100% sure) they have identified the players they want to sign and it is all about being able to bring them on board.

“Above all, we will ensure we get as maximum points as possible in the first leg and especially in our homes, it will be key when we amass as many points as possible it will push us to do better and avoid being sucked into the relegation battle.”

Sofapaka will not be ambitious for titles soon

Apart from winning the league title, Sofapaka also clinched the Kenya Super Cup (twice), President’s Cup (three times), Mashujaa Cup (once), Shield Cup (twice) and Jamhuri Cup (once).

They featured in the CAF Champions League in 2010 but failed to go past the preliminary round, and made three appearances in the Confederation Cup – 2008 when they got disqualified, 2010 when they reached the playoffs and 2015 when they reached the preliminary round.

Asked if the club will be able to challenge for titles in the new season, Okoth offered: “About challenging for the title next season, we just want to be realistic everything takes time, we don’t want to be ambitious at the moment, we have our main objective to try and ensure we finish in a steady position and then from there on (I think with time), and we can now probably go back to challenging for the titles.

“At the moment we just want to be realistic, it will be a long short, of course, it is not easy, we are focused on finishing the league in a far much better position (than last season), and then we see how we can build on from there, so I think everything is just one step at a time, we know in next few years we will ensure we take back the team to where it was in the previous years when we were challenging for titles and everything.”

However, Okoth said with a proper system in place, Batoto ba Mungu will be able to challenge for the titles. “I am sure once we have a good system in place, and the club is self-sustainable and we are not facing the same challenges that we came across last season, we are winning matches and everything is stable across all the departments, winning the title also needs a proper plan.

“It might take quite a while (for the entire department to click) but I am sure at the moment the plans we are putting in place will mature soon, we want to do everything we can so we finish in a good position, we are focused on the new season.”

Batoto ba Mungu finished the season with 36 points, amassed from nine wins, nine draws and 16 defeats.