Harambee Stars national team coach Benni McCarthy has shrugged off recent backlash received from the Kenyan public, saying he has a crocodile skin.
McCarthy, 48, was appointed the Kenyan mentor in March in 2025 and led the side to the quarter-final stage of the CAN tournament last year. However, they have had an inconsistent start to the qualifying campaign of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations in Group D as co-hosts.
The fact means they have automatically qualified for the PAMOJA event by virtue of being the one of hosts however the South African-born coach wants to use the qualifying matches to ready his team for the main event.
Kenya has only managed a point from the September qualifiers against Guinea and Eritrea with the match against the latter marred by player strikes after they were not paid for some months. The results have Kenya at the bottom of the group with one point, and it led to the Kenyan public criticizing him.
Speaking on SportyTV, the former Bafana Bafana striker said the backlash doesn’t really bother him because people don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes and he can handle it.
“You’re always going to get a backlash because people don’t know the ins and outs of what goes on,” said McCarthy.
“People just see the results and why you’re not selecting X, Y, Z, and A, B, C player. You know they don’t understand the reasoning why those players aren’t selected because the players don’t want to come and play for the national team, period, because of the ongoing struggles, the ongoing fights. So then players they just omit themselves from the team. So then you got to go for second best, third best, fourth best, whatever is out there.
“So, the fans, the general public don’t understand and don’t know all those reasons. So then, when you don’t beat Eritrea, then people then call for whatever, you get the backlash and you get the criticism, which is fine because it’s the job that we’re in. You know, it’s a result-driven game, and if you don’t have the right results, people ask questions. But yeah, those are the things that people don’t know.
“Those are the things people don’t know that the technical team hasn’t been paid for three months. They don’t know that. So you go there and you do things of your own back, hard work, and that. But someone takes their phone and say, ‘Ah, these guys, they must go, whatever, whatever.’ Like, would they be doing the same job for without getting paid?
“And it’s not my country. I’m doing it for free, also. I don’t even do that for my own country I do it for someone else. So those are things that these people don’t understand. But yeah, it is what it is. It’s the industry that we live in. It’s the era that we’re in now. So we’re okay. And you know, I’ve got a crocodile skin anyway, man. Doesn’t really bother me what people think or say. They don’t make a scratch in my life.”