Shimoli calls for patience as journey to 'transform' Leopards begins

AFC Leopards will have to wait for at least two years to fully go corporate and shift from the current status of a community club, the chairman of the taskforce leading the transition Vincent Shimoli has said.

According to Shimoli, it will not be a simple process as the club's constitution will have to be reviewed to facilitate complete the shift.

Stakeholders will be needed to be interviewed and fully involved for such a milestone of a task to be realized.

“We will have to wait for about two to three years to have this enormous task completed and fully implemented. You must know that we must change AFC Leopards constitution which means that we must go back to our stakeholders to have them fully involved on this issue,” Shimoli said.

Shimoli insists that going corporate is the only avenue to gain financial muscles to run affairs flawlessly, and compete with the top teams in Africa.

“You can never succeed as a club when you are not a corporate entity in modern football. For example let’s say that AFC Leopards has six million fans but when you look at the registered members you will only realise 5,000.

"It is all about business. When we go corporate, it will enhance chances of these big companies getting interested to invest with us,” Shimoli added.

"We will be visiting Tanzania next week to specifically find out and benchmark on what the top clubs their like Simba SC and Yanga SC are doing, and what has enabled them to reach the levels they are today," he explained.

Leopards have won Kenyan Premier League title 12 times, the last trophy in 1998.

Leopards, Gor Mahia and Shabana FC are the leading community clubs in the country, boasting of large fan bases but have struggled to keep up with modern football trends.