Harambee Stars lead data analyst Nick Kimanthi with head coach Benni McCarthy.

Harambee Stars’ data analyst Nick Kimanthi has shared worrying details about Kenyan football which point to why foreign-based players still have an edge.

Harambee Stars data analyst Nick Kimanthi has opened up about the difficulties of gauging the levels of performance of local-based players which could be hindering them from getting many opportunities.

Kimanthi works as the lead data analyst under coach Benni McCarthy and his job involves keeping tabs with key performance metrics of Kenyan players like distance covered, player load, impacts, work rate among others but he finds it easy to track foreign-based stars compared to their local counterparts.

The experienced performance analyst has decried the lack of technology in the Kenyan league which can help him and coaches gauge the performance levels of local-based players, making it hard for selectors, when it comes to choosing players for the national team.

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Scouts are forced to physically show up at matches to analyse the performance of key players locally but it is something that can save time and involve a large pool of players if there was technology to track their performances.

“For the local league, it is hard [to analyse players’ performances] because it is something that we have really pushed the office to at least have data for the league, for the clubs even, but maybe some day we will get there,” Kimanthi said on Sporty FM.

“We’re 50 years back!” Nick Kimanthi sounds the alarm on Kenya’s outdated data scouting for the national team.Watch the full conversation 👉: https://t.co/cUff6j1DZx#SportyFMKE #BeyondSport #HarambeeStars pic.twitter.com/KoHGTocawe

“It is hard, like you can imagine every single week, we have nine matches [in the local league]. How are you going to monitor that? But with data, it is easy. If you have league data, why scout?”

In what could point to why more foreign-based players get opportunities in the national team compared to their local counterparts, Kimanthi says Kenyan players outside the country are easy to track, making the selectors’ job less tedious.

“I am able to monitor like 50 Kenyan players playing abroad every single week because their data is available,” he added. “It is what we do every single week. We are able to know if this player played 45 or 15 minutes and then within 10 or 15 minutes, with a single click of a button, you have that data.”

Kimanthi was then asked where he thought Kenya was in terms of embracing data to track players’ performance and his response was startling. “Yes [Kenya is behind], we are like 50 years back,” he said.

His assessment adds to the concerns raised about the FKF Premier League whose players’ statistics are also difficult to find, and shows the kind of catching up needed before it can be classified as professional, at a time when the rest of the world has embraced technology in every aspect.