Amina tells Fifa to allow Kenya to 'clean up' football

Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed on Saturday told world football governing body, Fifa, to allow the country to clean up the sport.

In a statement two days after Fifa President Gianni Infantino announced Kenya and Zimbabwe had been suspended indefinitely due to government interference, Amina said she will continue engaging Fifa with a view to finding a lasting solution.

"We will continue cleaning up, putting systems of accountability in place as well as a draft constitution that is fully aligned to the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the Fifa statutes and to good order and globally recognised values," Amina said.

"We intend at the same time to engage Fifa as we have continued doing over the last three and a half months. We intend to keep it informed as we have done until now on the going cases, investigations and the actions that we are taking. We hope Fifa will reciprocate and keep Kenyans informed on actions they intend to take with respect to issues we have raised on suspected misappropriation of their resources."

Fifa's decision to suspend Kenya came as a result of Amina's move to disband the Nick Mwendwa-led Football Kenya Federation on November 11 last year, but the cabinet secretary has defended her actions.

FKF president Mwendwa was then arrested on two separate occasions and charged with graft, before stepping aside. His deputy Doris Petra has since taken over.

"The decision by the Government of Kenya on November 11,2021, to disband FKF fully adhered to the Laws of Kenya; it followed a legally prescribed process and had a defined roadmap. The decision was taken after it became crystal clear that the manner in which FKF was managing Kenya’s football growth and development was unsustainable and untenable."

"The lack of accountability for monies entrusted to it by the government and people of Kenya was raised with FKF on many occasions to no avail. We tried on many occasions to bring the matter which had festered for long to the attention of Fifa with no success as well. It seemed to us at times that Fifa and FKF were reading from the same book. Football in Kenya had deteriorated at all levels due to this mismanagement and had led to a public outcry. The Government has a responsibility to its citizenry to act in the public interest at all times."

The CS accuse the disbanded federation of becoming "a law unto themselves and ignored its stakeholders, discouraged our youth and made it clear that they had neither talent nor a future in football, firing and hiring of coaches in total disregard for signed contracts..."

"The inherent conflict of interest that was always present, demanded action from somewhere and the Registrar took action anchored on our laws."

Amina admitted that their efforts to reach Fifa were unsuccessful before accusing the world governing body of turning a blind eye to cases of malpractice by their members.

"Fifa, in fact, in our case and many others, showed so much reluctance to engage with government, for good order, for universal principles of accountability and transparency that we were left with no choice than to allow it to manage football as we complied with our laws and demanded accountability for monies entrusted to the Federation for use on our youth."

"The Caretaker Committee that I legally established and that is fully recognised by our laws, has been hard at work."

"We expected Fifa to take notice of all the positive developments taking place, allow us to carry on with our legally prescribed mandate to put our own house in order and then work with us on normalisation and fresh elections. We instead learnt through the media of a suspension based on government interference."

Kenya's suspension now means the country will be barred from fielding any team in any competitive event outside the country. These includes the men and women's football teams and clubs.

Similarly, referees will be barred from international assignments while no locally-based Kenyan footballer will be allowed to complete a professional transfer during the duration of the suspension.