Benni McCarthy has spoken for the first time since being appointed as the head coach of the Kenyan national team.
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After months of speculation, Bafana Bafana's all-time top goalscorer has officially been announced as the Harambee Stars' new boss.
The Cape Town native left Manchester United's technical staff at the start of the campaign and has been linked with a plethora of jobs ever since. However, in recent weeks, links with the East African side intensified, and now he has put pen to paper on a contract that will see him lead them for the foreseeable future.
Having left a club such as the Red Devils at the beginning of the 2024/25 campaign, many would have wondered why McCarthy chose to take the Kenya job. However, the 47-year-old has now revealed that he harbours ambitions of leading his new team to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
"You look at the potential that this Kenyan national team has and you look at other national teams and how well their doing, with half the talent that is Kenya. So with the right leaders in charge, with the right coaches, with the right mentality and right work ethic, we ca take this team to greater heights. I head a question earlier about the women's team might be the first Kenyan team to represent the country at the World Cup, but I think it will be both teams that will make it there," McCarthy said as he addressed members of the media for the first time.
The former Blackburn Rovers and FC Porto hitman also revealed why he wanted to take the role given the not so pleasant track record of the Football Kenya Federation.
"Transparency" he added. "They (Hussein Mohammed McDonald Mariga) are a new regime that is very transparent. They were honest and open. If there are difficulties, those are the difficulties that we have because in Africa, as a South African, I've dealt with the South African national team and playing in South Africa, that's always been Africa's biggest challenge where there's no transparency.
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"People say everything is okay but when you come there, nothing is okay. So growing up in Africa, I am accustomed to that but then I got educated in Europe, so for many years I've learnt the European way but deep down inside me I know how Africa functions but I also learnt how to equip Africa with the right things to make Africans better."
