Maxwell Otieno (right) of AFC Leopards fights for the ball with Levin Opiyo of Gor Mahia during their Football Kenya Federation Premier League match at Nyayo National Stadium on March 30, 2025.
The Mashemeji derby – the name given to fixtures between AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia – is an expert at ghosting the meeting and leaving fans’ hype high and dry.
The fixture exists on paper until the organisers wave a big red flag, for one reason or another, scuttling the anticipated meeting.
Like, in May 2018, the fixture was postponed after former Football Kenya Federation president Nick Mwendwa decided that Harambee Stars needed to play two friendly matches outside the Fifa window so that the then newly-appointed coach then Sebastian Migne got a chance to assess local-based players.
Centre referee Dickens Mimisa try to separate Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards players during their FKF Premier League match at Nyayo National Stadium on March 30, 2025.
Or, like it is normally the case, Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani and Nyayo Stadium – the only grounds deemed suitable to host the match because of their capacity and crowd-management infrastructure – are not available.
The derby has been hosted at either Kasarani or Nyayo since 2006. Before that, the big match was also played at City Stadium. In fact, the Mashemeji derby has seen action at City Stadium 28 times. In 1970 and 1978, the match was played at the Mombasa Municipal Stadium.
However, the two matches held in Mombasa and the first 21 meetings between the two giants of Kenyan football pre-date the construction of Nyayo and Kasarani.
The availability of the 30,000-capacity Nyayo and the 60 000-seater MISC from 1984 and 1988 respectively, introduced new thresholds for staging of the country’s biggest club tie.
The two venues have hosted 66 of 74 league meetings between the two clubs since 1984. City Stadium (seven) and Homa Bay’s Raila Odinga Stadium (one) hosted the remaining eight.
The stampede that led to the death of seven fans on October 23, 2010 during a league meeting between Ingwe and K’Ogalo resulted in the football authorities introducing the concept of classifying football matches.
The league thus had a low, medium, or high risk match depending on crowds they attract and the chances of violence erupting.
This placed an even higher threshold on boxes a venue needed to tick to be deemed suitable to host a high-risk fixture like the Mashemeji derby.
Only Kasarani and Nyayo met the minimum required standards, placing even greater demand on their availability to host the two arch rivals.
The advent of devolution in 2013 was expected to provide relief to Kasarani and Nyayo as counties embarked on constructing “international” class stadiums.
Gor Mahia fans unfurl a giant portrait of club patron Raila Odinga during the SportPesa League match against Kenya Police FC at Nyayo National Stadium on November 9, 2025.
However, the stadiums became sub-headings in the Auditor General’s annual reports on misuse of funds by county governments.
However, the Mashemeji derby of June 2, was held at the Raila Odinga Stadium in Homa Bay – a spiritual homecoming for K’Ogalo that ended in a 1-1 draw.
Various factors have dictated the unavailability of the government-owned Kasarani and Nyayo to host the derby over the years. Mostly, the venues were booked for other events.
Other times it is because , Sports Kenya, who manage the venues, had banned AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia from using them because of damages to the facilities attributed to the two sets of the clubs’ passionate fans.
On numerous occasions, the late former Prime Minister and Gor Mahia patron Raila Odinga had to mediate between Sports Kenya and the two clubs so that the derby could be played.
Ultra-modern standards
Frequent damages to Kasarani and Nyayo after hosting of AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia matches once led Sports Kenya and the two clubs to agreeing to jointly taking inventories of the facilities before and after matches so that any property damaged would be paid for by the offending club.
At one inventory-taking exercise that followed a derby match played at MISC in August 2018, one Gor Mahia official expressed shock at the price Sports Kenya said they would invoice for a damaged stadium seat. The official remarked that Sh3,000 was too much for a seat that resembled a ‘‘potty’’.
Kenya’s quest to upgrade the two facilities to ultra-modern standards has also led to rescheduling of the Mashemeji derby on several occasions.
For instance, last season, AFC Leopards could not find a venue to host the derby until March 30, when Nyayo, under refurbishment, became available after CAF cleared it to host a 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifier between Kenya and Gabon that month.
MISC has hosted only one Mashemeji derby league match since 2023 as it was mostly closed for renovations in preparations for the 2024 African Nations Championships (Chan) that was co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Before that, Kasarani had hosted all league meetings between the two clubs, between 2018 and 2022.
AFC Leopards fans rally behind their team during a friendly match to commemorate the club's 60 years anniversary at Nyayo National Stadium on March 24, 2024.
This was after Nyayo was closed for renovations in August 2017 in preparation for the 2018 Chan, originally set for Kenya but moved to Morocco over inadequate preparations by the original host.
This season, a combination of factors has seen the derby postponed yet again.
An oversight by the Football Kenya Federation in scheduling of the big fixture saw its initial date – this Sunday, clash with CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup fixtures.
As such, the derby could not be played at Moi International Sports Centre as it was booked to host the Confederation Cup Group “B” match between Nairobi United and AS Maniema Union of DR Congo Sunday.
Moving the fixture to Kasarani the day before was not an option because, per CAF rules, teams playing in their competitions have to feel the pitch on the eve of the match.
With FKF Premier League matches deemed subordinate to CAF fixtures, Nyayo was the automatic alternative venue but home team Gor Mahia arrived there playing second fiddle to the State. The government had booked the venue for activities to mark the World Aids Day on Sunday and Monday.
On Monday, SportPesa, the league title sponsors reported on their website that FKF had confirmed Gor Mahia will host AFC Leopards at Nyayo on Saturday.
That confirmation came a day before Gor Mahia suffered a humiliating 4-1 loss to lowly APS Bomet at Nyayo.
Then, Wednesday served another twist that highlighted how the Mashemeji derby’s frequent rescheduling has made AFC Leopards, Gor Mahia, and the Football Kenya Federation specialists in the vocabulary of announcing postponements.
Gor Mahia had written to the federation requesting the match’s postponement after failing to secure a suitable venue. Nyayo was no longer available on Saturday as the State will be setting up their event.
Gor Mahia’s letter to FKF proved yet again that the triad of certainties in Kenyan life consists of death, taxes, and the postponement of the Mashemeji derby.
So what next for the first meeting between these two glamour clubs this season? We wait, again for another confirmation.
