Bitok to vie for KVF deputy president post

The national women’s volleyball team head coach Paul Bitok has announced he will be moving into administration by vying for the Kenya Volleyball Federation’s (KVF) deputy presidency position in the June’s polls.

Bitok, who guided Malkia Strikers to the Olympic Games for the first time in 16 years in 2021-two years after he returned from Rwanda where he had an illustrious 10-year coaching career, feels he has grown into the sport to qualify for a leadership role.

Bitok’s return to the country to coach the Malkia Strikers in 2019 was viewed as part of a grand masterplan to use his success on the job to fuel his own ambitions to ascend to the KVF management, and he believes he is the perfect candidate to take over from current deputy chairman Charles Nyaberi.

“I’ve served in different capacities; as a player in Kenya and professionally as well as a coach in my country and also as an international coach in Rwanda, and I believe that there is more I can do to this game which I love most when I come to the leadership of the federation.

“To take our volleyball to the next level I believe that the challenge needs people like me and others who are like-minded to pick up from where Kioni (Waithaka) will have left by June.,” he told Citizen Digital.

The towering coach, who is also a Commissioner of Coaches Commission in Africa, said if elected by the clubs’ delegates, he will use the deputy position as a springboard to prepare to vie for the KVF top seat in the 2025 elections.

“It is my wish to be the president but I want a gradual transition from coaching career to leadership because I want to acquire the skills by learning from whoever will take over as I prepare to contest for the top seat in future.”

Bitok added that if elected, he will still be available to lead Malkia Strikers as head coach during this year’s World Championships to be co-hosted by Netherlands and Poland in September.

“The World Championships will be my last assignment with Malkia Strikers and the project which I started in 2019 I want to end on a high note and then hand over the squad to another coach knowing that I  a achieved something by rebuilding a youthful team to conquer in the years to come,” he added.

In 1998, Bitok became the first Kenyan to play professional volleyball when he signed with Tunisia side Etiole Sportiff- and donned the national colours at just 19.

The current KVF supremo Waithaka Kioni who has been at the helm of the volleyball governing body for 20 years is serving his last term following the new constitution which was put in place in 2014 establishing two-term limits to all elected officials.