Tragicomedy that is Kenyan football

Amina Mohamed

Cabinet Secretary for Sports Amina Mohamed speaks during a press conference at the Kenya Wildlife Service Training College in Naivasha on June 21, 2022.

Photo credit: Sila Kiplagat | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Things will get even messier as soon as many other clubs enjoin themselves to the suit. It is a good sign and may clear for us the way ahead.
  • When the final scorecard of sports ministry is released, we shall hold this as the most incompetent branch in this country.

Since the disbandment of the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) last November; we must admit that football in this country is dying or already dead and we do not know it yet, and nobody just seems to care.

The Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed formed the FKF Caretaker Committee to run football in this country and many of us lauded the move.

We were of the view that the Committee thus formed would streamline football in Kenya. It was good riddance to that executive committee that seemed to have lost its bearing and was fixing its navigational compass on their rumbling tummies as the true north.

The caretaker committee’s mandate elapsed last May. They had achieved nothing as a team and even then the country had already been banned by Fifa. 

Our focus was now shifting and we thought that the ministry was doing some talks with Fifa to lift the ban; we were deluded.

After the expiry of its mandate, the Caretaker Committee was baptised as the Transition Committee.

They were given another month long mandate to presumably complete the tasks they were undertaking albeit secretly.

They were now promising to do in one month what they had failed to do in half a year.

By this time we knew this joke would continue in perpetuity. This hunch was proven right last week when the Committee’s mandate was extended by two more months.

We expect this shall go on until kingdom come or some general election sweeps away many individuals in that ministry.

This extension has come with even more confusion in the already much confused sport.

The FKF-PL ended this month with several matches not played. This could be the second time such a silly thing happens in this country and we shall not be surprised if all the lower tier leagues shall go the same way.

The reason for these leagues ending that way is because the Transition Committee and its predecessor has ignored all the standing committees and judicial bodies of the FKF and has been doing things arbitrarily without them. The disputed matches were not dealt with and were left hanging.

The other danger this transition Rip Van Winkles’ is the litigation they are soon going to face.

Football is soon heading to the courts since we learnt that Zoo FC and Dandora Love, who play in the National Super League have withdrawn from the league. They shall not play their remaining matches until their pleas are heard.

Things will get even messier as soon as many other clubs enjoin themselves to the suit. It is a good sign and may clear for us the way ahead.

When the final scorecard of sports ministry is released, we shall hold this as the most incompetent branch in this country.