Check Out the Millions Dennis Oliech Would Have Made If He Had Switched Nationalities To Play For Qatar
Several years from now when Kenya counts its football heroes, he will make for a good quiz: which Kenyan powered Harambee Stars to qualify for their first Africa Cup of Nations this millennium?
Need a clue?
He was the first Kenyan player to feature for a French club. He was offered a chance to change his citizenship from Kenyan to Qatari in 2004.
At age 19 he was listed by British newspaper the Guardian as one of the world’s most wanted young players alongside Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and Wesley Sneijder. He signed a four-year contract with the French Ligue 1 team Nantes, worth $3.7 million (Sh281 million) in 2005.
He constantly rubbed federation officials the wrong way by either speaking up about non-payment of allowances for his team mates or snubbing national team call-ups altogether. Twice he paid air tickets for his Harambee Stars team mates so they could honour international matches.
Any clue yet?
He announced his retirement at age 32 but returned two years later as Kenya’s highest paid local-based footballer with a reported sign-on fee of Sh3.5 million and a monthly salary of Sh350,000.
Who is he?
None other than Dennis Oguta Oliech. The eighth child of Boaz Opiyo Oliech and Mary Auma Oliech, born and bred in Dagoretti; became invincible at Mathare United where he was signed as a teenager.
Oliech is no doubt revered as Kenya’s best scorer in the modern era and in his 14 years of international football, only Michael Olunga has come up as remotely comparable to his prowess.
So what is his personal assessment of himself? Of his supposed protégé?
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
“No. It is not that I am the best,” he says with a slight chuckle. “It is that nobody is looking for the strikers. There are no youth academies. That is where strikers are got from. Not from out of the blue.”
“Olunga is good, but he is still growing,” Oliech smiles. “You (the media) started talking about him when he was still at the developmental stage. Of course he has got the talent, but his time will come. Success doesn’t just come in one or two years. It takes time. But he is a good player.”
Oliech’s story dates back almost two decades ago to Kakamega High School from where Mathare United plucked him and convinced him to join their youth team.
This forced him to transfer to Kamukunji Secondary School in Nairobi where he found himself in the good company of his “school father” MacDonald Mariga, whose brother Victor Wanyama later became his “school son”.
