Here’s a season-defining look at Kenya’s top flight in 2025/26 – now officially branded the SportPesa League after Football Kenya Federation sealed a 10-year, KES1.12bn naming-rights deal that kicked in this season.
The money matters, not just as a headline figure, but because it sets a new financial floor for clubs already juggling travel, player wages and licensing costs, and it arrives alongside a still-fresh broadcast pact with Azam TV that continues to put more league matches on screens each weekend. Together, those two revenue streams are the backdrop to everything else in this campaign.
On the pitch, early momentum has belonged to Kakamega Homeboyz, who’ve set the pace through seven rounds, with Gor Mahia, AFC Leopards, and Posta Rangers tucked just behind. Bidco United and the promoted darlings Nairobi United are hanging in that first chasing pack, while Tusker and Kenya Police hover with games in hand. The table tell the story: the margins are tight, and a two-game swing can shuffle the top eight.
Context matters because of where we’re coming from. Kenya Police are the reigning champions after a gritty 2024/25 run-in, a title that ended Gor’s recent domestic stranglehold and reset the league’s power map. That triumph put the Law Enforcers into the CAF Champions League contention for the first time, a step up that forces any Kenyan champion to build depth fast.
Police’s debut in Africa delivered the learning curve everyone talks about: a bright start, then elimination by Al Hilal just shy of the groups – disappointing, but it still unlocked CAF participation funds and continental experience the squad will need if they’re to defend the crown while juggling heavy legs.
The other continental storyline belongs to Nairobi United, who earned Kenya a
Confederation Cup slot and now find themselves in a tricky group with Wydad (Morocco), AS Maniema (DRC) and Azam (Tanzania) – a serious calibration for a project that has climbed fast.
For Kenya Police, the “Africa tax” is already real in league form and rotation; for Nairobi United, the question is whether the adventure energises or drains them on FKFPL weekends.
Closer to home, fixtures have already produced signal results. Gor Mahia’s authoritative 3–0 over Posta on October 26 felt like vintage K’Ogalo – front-foot, ruthless, title-tone stuff. And looming at month-end is the Mashemeji Derby against AFC Leopards, a fixture that tests both teams’ reality against their mythology. Leopards’ improvement has made this less predictable than in recent years and whichever side navigates that 90 minutes better often emerges with the belief that fuels six or seven unbeaten games after.
Managers and micro-trends are already shaping the race. Kenya Police moved to steady the ship with Serbian coach Dusan Stojanović taking charge as they try to balance continental hangover with domestic demands. His debut league win over Sofapaka steadied nerves but also re-surfaced the perpetual refereeing discourse after Batoto ba Mungu complained about decisions at Police Sacco. It’s an old Kenyan theme: the officiating narrative can become as loud as the football if stakeholders don’t keep a lid on it.
Money, fans, and the matchday economy are a second-order battleground. Azam’s coverage keeps the league visible; SportPesa’s sponsorship is scheduled to ramp annually; FKF projects nine-figure revenue from those streams; and yet, gate collections remain the make-or-break cash flow for many clubs.
The good news: early rounds this season have reported healthy turnouts for the big draws – Gor, Leopards, Shabana – translating into meaningful receipts and better atmospheres. The challenge: spreading that energy to less glamorous fixtures, improving ticketing, and turning casual viewers into regular stadium goers.
Tactically, the league’s top end continues to be decided by who owns the transitions. Homeboyz and Gor have pressed with discipline and are profiting from quick ball recoveries and clean entries into Zone 14. Leopards’ resurgence has leaned on a more pragmatic structure off the ball and high-value set pieces. Police, under new leadership, are trying to rediscover the verticality that powered last season’s title run while managing minutes for key creators after their CAF workload.
The mid-table pack—Tusker, Bidco, Posta—has relied on compactness and narrow wins; expect that to hold until January, when fitness and squad depth separate pretenders from contenders. (The table trendlines so far back that up: small goal differences, lots of one-goal games.)
As ever, the league doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Broadcast exposure via Azam, a revived big ticket sponsor, and the bragging-rights theatre of Mashemeji are dragging the product forward. Governance is still a live issue, from licensing standards to calendar integrity; and refereeing quality remains under the microscope. But for the first time in a while, the onfield product feels like the headline: an open title race, genuine rivalry energy, and Kenyan clubs learning –sometimes painfully – what it takes to live in Africa’s elite company.
If early weeks are a guide, 2025/26 will reward consistency, smart rotation, and coherent pressing more than star names alone. The data and the eye test agree: this is a league that punishes loose structures and rewards teams brave enough to win the ball high and attack the box early.
What to watch from here: whether Homeboyz can sustain their start under the weight of expectation; whether Gor translate derby emotion into steady points; whether Leopards’ underlying numbers hold when the schedule tightens; and how Police manage the mental switch from continental exit to weekly domestic grind. Add in Nairobi United’s travel load and the January window’s usual churn, and the league’s middle third could be chaos – in the best possible way for the neutral.
For everyone else, it’s time to choose a lane: live with the press, live by the set piece, or live dangerously in transition. The title will choose the side that does two of the three, every weekend, without blinking.
