As Kenyans waited for President Uhuru Kenyatta’s direction on the Covid-19 situation, football stakeholders were playing hide and seek with each other.
Egos have been inflated larger than a blow fish would; breathing freely has become a luxury. None of the antagonists are sitting pretty; they are having sleepless nights.
Unfortunately, it’s football players in the local leagues who will suffer from this bickering.
The first tussle pits Football Kenya Federation (FKF) against the Sports Dispute Tribunal (SDT).
The Tribunal had in March suspended the federation’s elections and ruled that a normalisation committee be put in place by the Ministry of Sports.
World football governing body, Fifa came to the rescue of FKF president Nick Mwendwa, who appealed to the Geneva-based body. Fifa dismissed the Tribunal and called for talks.
Fifa had promised to settle the matter, but the coronavirus pandemic appears to have slowed down the intervention.
Although the new election dates have not been announced, aspirants who have shown interest in elective posts are busy selling their agenda and blueprints to the public.
On Tuesday last week, Tribunal organised a consultative meeting for stakeholders to discuss the election stalemate.
The aim of the Tribunal chaired by John Ohaga was to engage all the FKF presidential aspirants and also chart the way forward. Mwendwa snubbed the meeting.
He said that they were not going to be part of the discussions but will instead wait for a directive from Fifa.
So, it is Fifa that will decide if we go on with the skewed playground or if there some give and take on the way forward!
At the same time, the Kenya Premier League (KPL) has not agreed with the decision by FKF to cancel this season’s league.
The federation abruptly halted the Kenyan Premier League and awarded Gor Mahia the title without consulting the KPL which is mandated to run the top-flight league.
It is only the KPL Governing Council that has the power to make a decision on the cancellation of the league.
KPL was expected to resume the league in a few weeks should the President have lifted the cessation on movement due to the coronavirus crises.
However, the President extended the order by another 30 days because of a rise in the number of infected people in Kenya.
After the President’s announcement, it is back to the drawing board.
These two problems are a recipe for chaos in Kenyan football. We cannot advise the KPL Governing Council to let the matter drop because they shall be creating a precedence that allows the federation to take over everything.
Let us not fall back onto the hard times when we had two parallel leagues and made fools of ourselves.
Mwendwa should loosen up or pave the way for someone else to restore sanity in football.
