The Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga has pledged that if he wins the August election, he will ensure Kenya hosts the FIFA World Cup.

Raila said that when during the launch of the Elijah Lidonde Memorial Cup football tournament at the Mumias Sports Complex in Kakamega County.


He said his administration will build excellent facilities and upgrade the existing ones to enable players to be comfortable when taking part in sporting activities.

“We will build good facilities that will enable our players to be comfortable when playing football,” Raila said.

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“For instance, this Mumias Complex, we will improve it so that games can be played properly. We will upgrade the one in Kakamega that Oparanya built because we have plans to host the AFCON, then, later on, we will look at hosting the World Cup.”

The former Prime Minister pondered why Kenya could not host AFCON yet some other countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Burkina Faso


Raila added that under his administration will build more modern stadia in Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kericho with proper training facilities and equipment.

“We will also make sure Mombasa has a modern stadium. We will build more in Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu, and Kericho so that our youth have proper training facilities, including gymnasium,” he said.

The ardent soccer fan and the one-time player said they will improve the football standard in Kenya.

He said there will also be academies where young football players will be trained line in the developed countries while giving examples of notable football clubs such as Manchester United, Arsenal which he is a supporter of, Real Madrid PSC and Bayern Munich.


He also mentioned economically inferior West African countries such as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mali, Ghana and Nigeria as some countries which have soccer academies.

In 1996, Kenya was handed the hosting rights for the African Cup of Nations while in 2018, the country also had the opportunity to host the Africa Nations Championships but in both cases failed because of inadequacy in infrastructure and facilities.