The Ministry of Sports has expressed satisfaction with the appointment of South African Benni McCarthy as the new Kenya National football team coach.

The Cabinet Secretary for Sports Salim Mvurya says the former Bafana Bafana lethal forward is the right man to lead Harambee Stars considering his vast experience in his playing career that spanned over 10 years.

“On behalf of the government of Kenya, I would like to warmly welcome Benni McCarthy and his team. I am glad to welcome the new technical bench for Harambee Stars led by Benni.

He is highly qualified to be the Harambee Stars coach and we are confident that we have the right man for the job,” CS Mvurya said after McCarthy paid him a courtesy call at his Talanta Plaza office in Upper Hill, Nairobi.

Already, the Ministry of Sports has placed huge demands on McCarthy who is beginning a new journey in his coaching career after landing his first national team managerial role with Stars.

CS Mvurya says the nation is already ambitious and top on the to-do list for the new gaffer is to take Kenya to the FIFA World Cup. Further, Mvurya said that it would be noble for the country to compete well and win the African Nations Championship in August and the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations both on home soil.

“We are looking forward to Kenya qualifying for the World Cup and also being an impactful team in CHAN where we want to host and win. Also the 2027 AFCON, we want to host and win it as well,” Mvurya said as he pledged full government support towards the Football Kenya Federation and the new technical bench.

On his part, McCarthy,47, promised to work extra hard as a team to deliver the goodies for Kenya to make the local fans smile again as far as the national team is concerned.

“I really appreciate the warm welcome by the Minister. I would like to state that as a team we are going to work extremely hard for the Kenyan faithful, the fans, the government and the federation. We want to make them proud of their national team, and proud of being Kenyans.”

“We want to qualify for many things, we are hosting CHAN and for sure we want to give a good show. We are in it to win it because it is on our home soil. To begin, we have two important games ahead of us and that is our main focus currently. We feel that we have the players to play for the country and to get desired results and we hope that we can qualify for World Cup next year then you see Kenya being part of the spectacular event,” McCarthy remarked.

His first assignment will be against The Gambia on 17th March in Senegal before hosting Gabon for match-day six of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.