Stage two — building the game
How To Build Football In One Kenyan County, Step By Step
Three tracks, because they are not the same job. The professional game is how one licensed club gets built in one county, from incorporation and land to a modular stadium. The grassroots game is how the community game in that same county gets organised, surfaced, refereed and paid for. The national game is the Harambee Stars camp base that sits on top of both, so a call-up does not mean leaving your club or your county. Pick a track, pick a county, and every step below is priced for that county — its own courts, pitches, academies, teams and stadium, not a national average.
The order is taken from how professional clubs in the Premier League and the divisions beneath it were actually developed — the FA on legal structures, England Football Accreditation, the Football Foundation’s feasibility-before-funding rule, EFL academy licensing — and then priced with Kenyan statutory fees and Kenyan build and wage costs. Statutory fees are published rates. Everything else is our estimate, in the open to be argued with.
Eight steps from an empty county to a licensed professional club with its own ground: incorporate, plan, secure land, build a base, license the squad, pass FKF licensing, put up a modular stadium, then trade your way off grant money.
Five-year cost
$8.54m
One-off plus five years of running
estimateas at 16 Sept 2026Our estimate, Kenyan cost inputsWhat gets built here
3 courts · 1 pitch
1 academy · 1 stadium · 96 teams
officialas at 16 Sept 2026KNBS 2019 census and our county allocationFilter by KPL Strategic Plan pillar — see only your own workstream
Incorporation and Governance
Make the club a legal person that can hold land, employ people and sign contracts, with a board and the policies to match, before a shilling is spent on anything physical.
The work
- Incorporate a company limited by guarantee at the Business Registration Service, with an asset lock so the ground can never be sold out from under the members.
- Appoint a board with a finance director, a safeguarding lead and at least one county nominee.
- Affiliate to the FKF county branch and register the club at branch, county and national level.
- Adopt safeguarding, child protection, anti-discrimination and financial control policies.
What you end up with
- A registered club with an asset lock
- A board that can be held to account
- An affiliated licence path
What it costs in Kisumu
Business Plan, Financial Model and Trademark
Prove the club can pay for itself on paper before anyone is asked to fund it, and own the name and the badge outright.
The work
- Write a five-year business plan with real income and expenditure lines, not aspirations.
- Build a financial model of gate, sponsorship, academy, retail and match costs, with a break-even year.
- Register the club name, badge and kit marks at KIPI across the three relevant classes.
- Open bank and mobile-money accounts, register for PAYE and VAT, appoint auditors.
- Set the ticket, membership and pay-to-play pricing against local incomes, not Nairobi ones.
What you end up with
- A fundable business plan
- A registered trademark
- Audited books from year one
What it costs in Kisumu
Feasibility, Consents and Utilities
Find out what the site can actually carry, and get the permissions in hand, before committing capital.
The work
- Commission a topographic and geotechnical survey of the site.
- Commission an agronomist and drainage report for the playing surfaces.
- Submit the county planning application for the base, the pitches and the stadium footprint.
- Obtain the NEMA environmental impact assessment licence.
- Design water, power, sewerage and access, including the floodlight load.
What you end up with
- Planning consent
- An environmental licence
- A buildable, drained site design
What it costs in Kisumu
Club Base and Training Ground
Secure the land and give the club somewhere to train every day and somewhere to run the business from, at a cost that does not need a stadium first.
The work
- Secure land in Kisumu for the base and training ground — lease first where purchase is not affordable — with a title search, a registered boundary survey and a valuation.
- Build two grass training pitches with drainage and irrigation.
- Deliver a changing pavilion with four changing rooms, officials' room, toilets and stores.
- Fit out a club office, a gym and a medical and physiotherapy room.
- Fence, light and secure the site so it can trade in the evenings.
What you end up with
- Land under agreement
- A daily training base
- A trading site with evening hours
What it costs in Kisumu
Squad, Academy and Coach Licensing
Field the teams FKF licensing actually requires, with coaches who hold the badges.
The work
- Sign a senior squad on written contracts, registered on Kenya Connect.
- Run the club's own youth teams — at least one in the 15 to 21 band and one in the 10 to 14 band, owned by the club, not a partner academy.
- Employ CAF-licensed coaching staff and put the rest of the staff through the badges.
- Appoint a physiotherapist and put pitchside first response in place.
- Register every player and insure the squad.
What you end up with
- A licensed senior squad
- Two owned youth teams
- Badged coaching staff
What it costs in Kisumu
FKF Club Licensing and League Entry
Pass the five licensing pillars — sporting, infrastructure, personnel and administration, financial and legal — and get on the fixture list.
The work
- Submit the licensing application with audited accounts and a declaration of overdue payables.
- Formalise the ownership structure and publish it.
- Prepare for quarterly audits rather than a single annual scramble.
- Budget the season: travel, match operations, levies and referees.
- Where continental entry is realistic, process through the CAF licensing platform.
What you end up with
- An FKF club licence
- A league place
- Quarterly audit readiness
What it costs in Kisumu
Modular Stadium
Build the ground last and build it in stages, so the club never carries a stadium it cannot fill.
The work
- Commission the stadium feasibility and grading study for Kisumu.
- Phase one: a 3,000-seat modular stand, floodlights, turnstiles and toilets.
- Phase two: opposite stand, media and hospitality, to FKF and CAF grading standards.
- Design for re-siting and for non-match income from day one.
What you end up with
- 1 modular stadium in Kisumu
- A graded ground for league and continental football
What it costs in Kisumu
Trading, Revenue and Sustainability
Get the club off grant money and onto its own income, with the academy as an export line.
The work
- Sell gate, membership, hospitality and shirt sponsorship against local income levels.
- Trade the academy properly: written contracts, sell-on clauses and FIFA solidarity claims.
- Run the women's team and the community programme as part of the club, not a side project.
- Hire the pitches and the base out in every hour the squad is not using them.
- Publish the accounts each year, so the model can be checked.
What you end up with
- A break-even operating model
- Transfer, sell-on and solidarity income
- About 96 community teams with a club above them
What it costs in Kisumu
Anchored to
Kenya Premier League Strategic Plan 2022–2027
Restructure, rebrand and reposition: taking member clubs to a greater standard of professionalism, corporate governance and financial sustainability.
Kenya Premier League01
Grass Roots
A primary and secondary schools programme creating sporting, health and education outcomes.
Our grassroots track builds the courts and county leagues those school programmes need somewhere to play in.
02
Football Business Academy
Education and training for the people who will run professional clubs.
Our business plan, financial model and licensing steps are the syllabus in practice, costed county by county.
03
Club Structures
Guiding member clubs on the legal structures that attract capital and strategic investors.
Step one incorporates a company limited by guarantee with an asset lock, exactly the investor-ready structure the plan calls for.
04
Multi-Sports Division
Building facilities for young people to play more professional sports and attract fans and sponsors.
Our club base, courts and modular stadium are specified for multi-sport use so the same concrete earns from more than football.
The distribution problem
67% of clubs in Nairobi
48m people — 87% of Kenya — live outside it. Get more teams incorporated and operating outside Nairobi, in line with the 2010 Constitution.
Every proposed location in this plan sits outside Nairobi unless Nairobi is the county being priced, and the priority corridor is built from population and GDP at purchasing power parity outside the capital.
FKF club licensing
SportingInfrastructurePersonnel and administrationLegalFinancial
FKF Premier League clubs must run at least one youth team at 15–21 and one at 10–14, verified through the Club Licensing Online Platform.
Steps five and six carry the academy, coaching qualifications, audited accounts and infrastructure evidence each licensing pillar asks for.
2022
Foundation year: strategic plan launch and stakeholder consultation
2023
Building blocks: academy curriculum, governance framework, early partners
2024
Partnership momentum: commercial and community partners onboarded
2025
Partnership consolidation: long-term alliances and private capital partners
2026
Commercial structuring: clubs incorporated for commercial purposes, infrastructure aligned
2027
Full implementation and sustainability metrics — the same year AFCON arrives
TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations PAMOJA 2027
AFCON is in June 2027. The build runs before it, through it and after it.
Kick-off 19 June 2027 · Final 17 July 2027 · Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
Kenya co-hosts the continent's tournament in June 2027. That is the fixed point every phase below is timed against. Nothing here depends on the tournament being won; it depends on the facilities still being in use in 2030.
Until kick-off
275
days
11
hours
06
minutes
45
seconds
Finished by kick-off
- The first wave of five-a-side courts in the ground and trading, county by county.
- County leagues playing on them, with fixtures, referees and a published table.
- Coaches and referees through their first FKF and CAF courses.
- Clubs incorporated, affiliated and inside the licensing process.
- One Harambee Stars county camp base commissioned and in use.
- Every figure in this plan re-checked against its published source.
Before
Now to June 2027
Courts and pitches in the ground and in use, county leagues running, coaches and referees qualified, clubs incorporated and licensed.
Small-sided courts are the only facility class that can be delivered at volume in this window. Grass and hybrid eleven-a-side work starts now but lands later.
During
June and July 2027
Every county venue used as a fan park, a training base or a community programme site while the continent is watching.
Attention is the cheapest marketing the game will ever get. Courts already trading can convert it into memberships, leagues and sponsorship on the spot.
After
August 2027 onward
The facilities keep trading, the leagues keep running, and the academies keep producing.
The test is not the tournament. It is whether a child in a county town still has somewhere to play in 2030 and a pathway that leads somewhere.
What every cost here is built from
Kisumu cost index x1.395
Every Kenyan cost line below is built from Kenyan wages, electricity, water, rent, materials and published statutory fees. Where a cost genuinely varies locally — wages, rent, materials — it is indexed to Kisumu at x1.4 of the national average rather than to a flat national figure. Tariffs and statutory fees are national published rates. The outcomes — what a produced player, a licensed club or a filled stadium is worth — are priced on established professional football markets. Statutory fees and cost inputs are re-checked automatically and any change is held for review before it appears here.
officialas at 16 Sept 2026KSh 130 to US$1 · exchangerate-api.com (open access endpoint)| Input | Basis | National rate | In Kisumu | Published by | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wages | Statutory wage orders and average earnings, uprated by CPI | KSh 18,000a month, entry level | KSh 25,110 | Ministry of Labour, Kenya (Regulation of Wages Order) Official Statisticpublished 2025-05-01 | official · annual |
| Electricity | Retail tariff including the monthly fuel adjustment | KSh 28.5per kWh | National rate | Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority Official Statisticpublished 2026-07-01 | official · monthly |
| Water | Approved utility tariff for the county's water service provider | KSh 105per cubic metre | National rate | Water Services Regulatory Board Official Statisticpublished 2026-04-01 | official · quarterly |
| Rent and land | Commercial rent and county land rates | KSh 950per m2 a month | KSh 1,325 | County land rates and commercial rent listings KSKF Estimate | estimate · quarterly |
| Materials and construction | KNBS construction cost and producer price indices | x1.0against the national average | x1.4 | Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Official Statisticpublished 2026-05-01 | official · annual |
| Statutory fees | Published rates, re-checked into the review queue | Incorporation KSh 10,650, trademark KSh 27,000one-off | National rate | Business Registration Service, Kenya Official Statisticpublished 2025-07-01 | official · quarterly |
| Football governance | FKF affiliation, club licensing, coaching and referee courses | Affiliation $1,200, licence $3,500one-off | National rate | Football Kenya Federation Official Statisticpublished 2025-01-01 | official · monthly |
| Outcomes and valuations | Priced on established professional football markets, not on Kenyan wages | Market values and transfer records | National rate | Transfermarkt Unverified / Reported | benchmark · monthly |
How the steps and the prices were set
Statutory fees are published rates. Build, wage and operating costs are our own estimates for Kisumu, sized from its census population and its share of the national allocation. Nothing here is a quotation, a budget or an awarded contract.
The commercial case
Can you deliver any of this better?
We would rather back the right partner than build everything ourselves. Submissions are open to the diaspora, county governments, clubs, schools, contractors and coach educators — including ones that re-scope or re-sequence these steps entirely.
Kenya Premier League Strategic Plan 2022–2027
The Recommended Steps, Anchored To The League's Own Plan
Every step recommended here delivers something the Kenya Premier League Strategic Plan 2022–2027 already asks for. The pillars are the league's; the costs, facilities and sequencing are ours, published so they can be argued with.
01 · Grass Roots
A primary and secondary schools programme creating sporting, health and education outcomes.
Courts, community grounds and the county league that gives a schools programme somewhere to play, in every one of the 47 counties.
02 · Football Business Academy
Education and training for the people who will run professional clubs.
The business plan, financial model, audited books and coach and referee education lines, priced county by county rather than taught in the abstract.
03 · Club Structures
Guiding member clubs on the legal structures that attract capital and strategic investors.
Incorporation with an asset lock, a board with a finance and safeguarding lead, FKF affiliation and the licensing evidence pack.
04 · Multi-Sports Division
Building facilities for young people to play more professional sports and attract fans and sponsors.
Every court, hall and stadium specified for basketball, volleyball, netball, handball and futsal from the drawing, so the same concrete earns on more days.
Where the plan says run two steps as one
Club Structures
Run incorporation and licensing as one workstream
Incorporation and Governance + FKF Club Licensing and League Entry
Both answer Club Structures, and licensing asks for the same governance evidence incorporation produces. Doing them together means the licensing file is written once, not twice.
Football Business Academy
Teach the business plan through the Football Business Academy
Business Plan, Financial Model and Trademark + Trading, Revenue and Sustainability
The plan and the trading model are the same document at two points in time. KPL's academy is the natural place to write and then defend it.
Grass Roots
Build the courts and the county league together
Courts and Pitch Upgrades + Leagues and Organised Competition
A court with no fixtures is a car park. Commission the surface and the season together so the schools programme lands on a working competition.
Multi-Sports Division
Specify the base and the stadium for multi-sport from day one
Club Base and Training Ground + Modular Stadium
Retrofitting a hall for basketball or volleyball costs more than drawing it that way. The Multi-Sports Division only works if the specification carries it at design stage.
The Multi-Sports Division, written into the buildings
The Multi-Sports Division is the pillar that changes the buildings. Marking a court for basketball, netball and volleyball at drawing stage costs a fraction of retrofitting it, and it is what turns a football facility into a venue that trades seven days a week. Hire rates and hours are our estimates.
| Facility | Also carries | Specification | Extra spec, per unit | Extra hire a year | Pays back in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stackable 5-a-side and futsal courts | Futsal, Basketball, Netball, Handball, Volleyball | Overlaid court markings, 3.05m basketball rings on the fence posts and sockets for volleyball and netball posts. Nothing structural, specified at drawing stage. | $2,400 | $3,31212h a week | 0.7 years |
| Community 11-a-side pitch upgrades | Athletics warm-up, Rugby sevens, Community events, School galas | A 200m grass loop marked around the pitch, sockets for rugby posts, and a hard apron for seating, stalls and school events. | $6,500 | $4,4168h a week | 1.5 years |
| Indoor football arenas | Futsal, Basketball, Volleyball, Netball, Handball, Badminton | Sprung multi-sport surface, retractable rings, divider nets and a spectator side, so the hall sells to five sports and to schools by day. | $48,000 | $30,36030h a week | 1.6 years |
| County academies and coach education | Multi-sport coach education, Strength and conditioning, Referee courses | A classroom and gym shared across sports, so the academy also hosts the county's basketball and volleyball coach courses. | $5,200 | $4,14010h a week | 1.3 years |
| Modular professional stadiums (Priority 18) | Football, Rugby, Athletics, Basketball show courts, Concerts and conferences | Demountable stands, a hard infield apron, power and broadcast tie-ins sized for non-football events, and covered concourse space that lets go on a weekday. | $210,000 | $154,56024h a week | 1.4 years |
| Modular county stadiums (remaining counties) | Football, Rugby, Athletics, County events, Volleyball | The same demountable specification at 3,000 to 5,000 seats, with a community hall under the main stand for indoor sport and county use. | $95,000 | $57,96018h a week | 1.6 years |
| Across the whole programme | All units | $7.71m | $5.51m |
Across the whole programme: $7.71m of extra specification, $5.51m of non-football hire income a year
KPL’s own county competition
The Governors' League
KPL's own proposal for a competition involving all 47 counties, using county-built stadiums that mostly sit idle, as the pipeline that finds young players where they live.
What it is
- Announced by KPL in October 2024 and taken to the Council of Governors, with the first county conversations reported in Trans Nzoia.
- A county-level competition sitting under the professional pyramid, built to be a development route rather than a rival league.
- Its stated purpose is twofold: find talent at county level, and put publicly funded stadiums into regular use instead of leaving them empty between rallies and rare fixtures.
Why it fits these facilities
- It needs exactly the facilities recommended here: one playable, floodlit community ground and a modular county stadium in every county, plus courts for the age groups below.
- It answers the geography problem in KPL's own plan — two thirds of top-flight clubs are in Nairobi while 87% of Kenyans are not.
- It gives the schools programme, the county academy and the professional club a competition to feed, which is the part usually missing when facilities are built.
| Season cost line | Per fixture | Per county season |
|---|---|---|
| Match officials, three per fixture | $45 | $990 |
| Pitch preparation and floodlighting per fixture | $120 | $2,640 |
| Match-day medical and safety per fixture | $85 | $1,870 |
| Ball, kit and equipment share per fixture | $40 | $880 |
| Team travel, county-level average per fixture | $210 | $4,620 |
| 22 fixtures a county season | $500 | $11,000 |
All 47 counties, one season: $517,000
Fixture costs are our own estimates at Kenyan rates, published so a county can argue with them. Nothing here is agreed with KPL, the Council of Governors or any county.
The league’s own roadmap
2022
Foundation year: strategic plan launch and stakeholder consultation
2023
Building blocks: academy curriculum, governance framework, early partners
2024
Partnership momentum: commercial and community partners onboarded
2025
Partnership consolidation: long-term alliances and private capital partners
2026
Commercial structuring: clubs incorporated commercially, infrastructure aligned
2027
Full implementation and sustainability metrics — the year AFCON arrives
Stage 2 of 4 — Building The Game
So what follows
Courts, leagues, coaches, academies and licensed clubs are the machine. On their own they are a shopping list. What turns them into a case is what they cost, what they return and who pays for them.