In 1896, the British Parliament authorized the construction of the Uganda Railway, a project so deeply ridiculed by the London elite that it was christened “The Lunatic Line.” Critics in the House of Commons mocked it as a “gigantic folly,” a colossal waste of taxpayer money that led through a “hopeless, waterless, and uninhabited” wilderness. They laughed at the thought of a railway serving no purpose other than to connect a swamp to a lake. Yet, as the man-eating lions of Tsavo took their pound of flesh and the skeptics sipped their tea in distant salons, that very “folly” gave birth to Nairobi. It created the foundation for the very city where today’s digital keyboard warriors sit in air-conditioned cafes, using 5G internet to complain that their local football league doesn’t look like a Hollywood production.
The irony! We are currently plagued by a peculiar breed of “Kenyan-based Europeans”—individuals who have never set foot in Islington or Manchester but will defend a London club’s honor with more ferocity than they defend their own inheritance. These EPL merchants, draped in “Grade 1” fake jerseys that probably still smell like the shipping container from Guangzhou, spend their weekends obsessing over a league played 9,000km away. They dare to look down their noses at the raw, unscripted drama of the SportPesa League, calling it “substandard” while they provide free marketing for a multi-billion-dollar British export that doesn’t even know they exist.
It is a classic case of what I always say: whoever is pressed will look for somewhere to relieve themselves, whether it is a loo or not, regardless of the circumstance. These influencers are “pressed” by a desperate need for relevance, so they choose to relieve their frustrations on the very soil that feeds them. They trash the Kenyan Premier League on TikTok and X, yet they are the first to cry about the “lack of opportunities” for Kenyan youth. They want to earn from the industry, to be “brand ambassadors” for local sports betting companies, yet they treat the actual sport like a contagious disease. You cannot set fire to the house and then complain that you have nowhere to host your dinner party.
Lest we forget, the “heaven” they watch on SuperSport was once a hellscape of its own. In the 1980s, the English league was a swamp of hooliganism and dilapidated stadia. The 1985 Heysel Disaster and the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, where nearly a hundred fans lost their lives, were the low points of a system that was broken, violent, and banned from Europe. They didn’t fix it by having English influencers tweet that the league was “trash” and that they should all just watch Brazilian football instead. They fixed it by investing, attending, and believing. They turned a “Lunatic Line” of football into a global brand because they were the change they wanted to see.
Meanwhile, right under our noses, the very league these “merchants” despise is producing the stars of tomorrow. Look at Mohammed Bajaber—the midfield maestro who honed his craft at Nairobi City Stars before becoming a hot commodity at Simba SC and the national team. Bajaber didn’t drop from the sky in a Manchester City kit; he is a product of our dust, our grit, and our local system. When you trash our league, you are trashing the Bajabers of the future. You are telling every kid in Eastlands that their dreams are only valid if they are broadcast in 4K with a British accent. If you can’t find anything good to say about our league, do us a favor and keep your “European” opinions in the London cafes where they belong. We are busy building a railway; you’re just complaining about the lions.
