Vilified and adored in equal measure, Gor Mahia Chairman Ambrose Rachier arguably posses most qualities of a true leader.
Why? Rachier can be regarded as one of the most successful chairpersons of football clubs. To make the case stronger, which club has won the Kenya Premier League title for the third consecutive time? Is it not Gor Mahia?
Where did he begin?
Since his debut in 2008, Rachier’s tenure saw the club end their 18-year wait for a Kenyan Premier league title claiming the coveted gong in 2013 and have since gone on to monopolize the competition, winning it six times under his watch besides bagging two KPL Top Eight titles, a further four KPL Super Cups and two domestic cups.
Since then K’Ogalo have made appearances at the continental football every year bar in 2017, reaching the quarterfinals of the Caf Confederations Cup this term.
In fact, his stint has seen the Green Army win a three-peat twice, first three-peat in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and the second in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Despite all these achievements, Rachier has not walked the journey without enemies.
He has been slammed by critics of failing to build a stadium for ‘Mighty’ K’Ogalo and also failing to lead Gor to clinch continental trophies.
For that reason, the embattled Chairman was quoted saying that he will be leaving the helm to his opposers so that they may also experience the same challenges he has gone through.
However, Rachier has received support from a football legend Dr Dan Shikanda.
During his recent interview with Citizen TV, Dr Shikanda said that Rachier has strived to give K’Ogalo a face in Africa. Nonetheless, Shikanda said that the football environment has not allowed him to build a team that can beat Africa.
Dan Shikanda: Rachier has played his role but the football environment in this country has not favoured him to build a team that can beat Africa
Gor has had no competition in Kenya; you cannot have one team running the show and expect it to go do better internationally #DayBreak pic.twitter.com/tAvUTmVqCe— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) June 3, 2019
His sentiments were echoed by Citizen TV journalist Steve Shitera who said that Rachier has brought life to K’Ogalo and the fruits of his work can be seen right from 2013.
Steve Shitera: I think Ambrose Rachier is a chairman who brought back Gor Mahia to life. We have seen fruits of his work from way back in 2013 #DayBreak pic.twitter.com/xK5VWDV6XA
— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) June 3, 2019
Do you think Ambrose Rachier has done a lot to Gor Mahia?