No end in sight for swimming wrangles despite World Aquatics intervention

The turbulence in Kenya’s murky swimming waters seems far from over even after World Aquatics installed a Stabilisation Committee last year to run swimming activities in the country.

World Aquatics could now consider expelling Kenya that is under suspension entirely if the elections organised by its Stabilisation Committee on July 8, this year, are not held as scheduled.

This is after some swimming stakeholders Margaret Ndung’u Mwasha and Conrad Dermot Biltcliffe Thorpe through their lawyer, Charles Kanjama, stopped the elections until a case they still have at the High Court is determined.

In an injunction issued on June 14, 2023, Mwasha and Thorpe, want the June 5, 2023 notice calling for Kenya Swimming Federation (KSF) extra ordinary general meeting June 24 followed by the elections on July 8 at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, halted.

They said that the notice for the meeting and elections disregarded the issue awaiting determination before the High Court.

Mwasha and Thorpe had on March 19, 2021 taken KSF, Sports Kenya, Sports Registrar and Attorney General to court, for violating the constitution.

They wanted the Sports Act interpreted after the universal voting where swimmers are supposed to be allowed to vote were not.

World Aquatics then FINA first suspended KSF in January, 2021 owing to incessant wrangles and court cases before it moved to ban the country indefinitely In July last year after failing to meet several deadlines for election.

World swimming governing body then appointed a three-man Stabilisation Committee to run the sport in the country.

The committee headed by South Africa’s Jace Naidoo, comprising the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) Secretary General, Francis Mutuku and Moses Benon Mwase from Uganda, had six months to also help KSF prepare for fresh elections.

Mutuku is now worried that the country will face dire consequences with the court injunction and wished the parties would tone down and allow the elections to continue.   

“Expulsion means that even those who have been competing as neutral athletes won’t compete either at the World Championships or Olympics,” said Mutuku, adding that the wrangles that have gone on for six years, have affected the growth of the sport in the country.

The country continues to lose out on millions of shillings in grants and myriad scholarships for swimmers and technical officials.

For instance, the Olympic Aquatic Support Program that draws up to US$ 30,000 (Sh 4.2 million) annually, scholarship grants of up to Sh 5 million in swimming, open water and diving for each and university scholarships estimated between US$ 40,000 (Sh 5.6m) and US$ 50,000 (Sh 7m).  

The KSF has been characterised by incessant wrangles since 2013 under the leadership of Ben Ekumbo hence denying talented youth opportunities to advance their careers.

Not even change in leadership at the federation in 2016, when Ekumbo resigned as KSF president under a dark cloud of the 2016 Olympics Team Kenya kits scandal, put an end to the wrangles.

The wrangles continued under the late Patrick Muyah’s leadership. Muyah passed on in April 2021 and Zack Musembi took charge in acting capacity.