The Chapa Ilale Conspiracy

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The truth about Chapa Ilale Revealed

Imagine signing up for a tournament where you are supposed to randomly pick players into 4 teams. In those teams, there is a less than 1% chance that you will end up with two of your best players in the same team. Imagine that the less talented players will also end up spread in those 4 teams. What would you do if the exact opposite is what happens? What would you think happened with your process to ensure this does not happen? How do you explain the “randomness” of your process? That is exactly what happened on the 30th of November 2014. What exactly happened? Who was involved in the drawing? What was supposed to happen? How was the process done? Was it a fair and random process? Why all the controversy behind it?

It all began on the 1st of October 2014 when Philo suggested that we change the format for playing the Thanksgiving Tournament to make it more challenging and more interesting. Prior to that the Thanksgiving games were 11 aside with players eating in between games and returning if not tired. They were not very competitive, the atmosphere was more of a get together than a real competition. The first step was to have people sign up for the tournament and then divide the people into teams of 7 players. The goal was to reach 28 players and have 4 teams. It was announced that the registration was on a first come first serve basis. Philo collected the names of those that registered and now there needed to be a way to divide the players.

Enforcer (Kevo) suggested that we have a 4 colors (Red, Blue, Yellow and Green) to represent the four teams and have players choose randomly from a black bag which color to play in. Four players would pick colors at a time and put them back in the bag once it is determined which color they will play for. There was no specific order of drawing, any player would draw first and then wait for all the players to draw and then put their colors back in the Bag. Kevo brought the bag and the 4 colored cubicles to be used in the drawing. This was the “Kiems Kit” as it was later labeled following the then Kenyan national election led by IEBC. The plan was set, the kiems kit was decided now it remained to conduct the drawing and establish the teams.

The drawing was done two weeks before the tournament. It was November 16, 2014. The day was Sunday after the usual game. All players were present immediately following the game. The registered players were present to participate in the drawing as planned. However, there were a few players that did not show up but were registered so we had to decide how to draw them. It was decided that other players would randomly pick colors for them and place them in one of the teams. This would later cause a lot of controversy as one of the source of “Rigging”. The main people who led the drawing were Philo who was holding the bag and calling out names, Mikey who was writing the names, overseeing the whole process and what teams players chose, Kevo and Max. The drawing was done as planned and at the end all the names were read and the four teams announced. Each team was tasked with choosing a team name and the color of their jersey before game day. The names and colors were shared on Whatsapp to avoid duplicating colors. There were no complains at he end of the drawing, everybody went home to await the day of the game.

The games were supposed to begin at 11 am on Sunday, 30th November, 2014. Players arrived ready to play but there were other unregistered players who showed up wanting to play. Some teams had players that did not show up and other players who had injuries. Those teams requested to have their players substituted by the new arrivals. The four players to be added were; Omari, Maicon, Iniesta  and Mosoti. An argument ensued as to whether these players should be added to the teams or not. The rules prior to the tournament stated that the selected teams were final and no adjustments were to be made. After much debate team captains were asked to agree or disagree on the issue. The decision was made to include all four players. However, the next challenge was how to decide which player would go to which team. It was decided that they would use grass to pick the players. The grass was to be used in the same way we use a coin for heads and tails. The grass holder would place the grass in one hand while the other hand remained empty.

Once the process was complete, grievances started to arise because one team (Chapa Ilale) was perceived as the strongest based on players they had. There were complains of “imbalance” among the teams. One notable complain was the pairing of Geto with Philo which was a well established “taboo” on regular Sunday games because these two were playing very well during their prime years and would win a lot of games playing together. Therefore, when they ended up in the same team there was immediate suspicion that he was “handpicked” to be in that team especially since he was absent on the day of the drawing. Chapa Ilale was immediately tagged the “favorites” and they proved to be so as they dominated the tournament scoring a record 10 goals in all games only conceding 1 goal overall.

Following the tournament, many players demanded an inquiry into how “random” the selection process was. There was a loss of trust to that selection process as more questions emerged about the “randomness” of the process. Some players pointed out that there was room for manipulation and mind games during the drawing which could have compromised the integrity of the process. The players wanted a new process that would ‘balance” the teams. Other players wanted the random selection but wanted to eliminate the human hand in it and avoid all blame, complaining and thoughts of “unfairness” in the process. The solution was suggested by Max who came up with an app called “Random Selector”. This app would take up the players’ names and randomly divide the names into four or five teams. The app instantly gained popularity and has since remained the gold standard for selecting teams.

The drawing remains a controversial issue in most Uhuru debates because there is a lack of evidence or records, it is all based on what each player perceives as the truth. All four main participants were interview prior to writing this blog. Two of them said the process was fair, one of them said it was not perfect and that there was room for manipulation and one other said that Geto was the source of the whole controversy because he was supposed to go to another team but his color was put back in the bag and re-drawn ending up in the favorite Chapa Ilale team. The information presented in this blog was obtained from interviewing these four players. Mikey was not present on game day as he was out of town so his input was limited to the day of the drawing. Do you think the process was random and fair? Would you do it again given a second chance? Leave your comments below and share your thoughts or what you remember on that day.