The police intervention came a day after public outcry over the delayed Harambee Stars flight to Cape Verde/XINHUA-File
NAIROBI, December 28 – The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), has recommended the prosecution of Football Kenya Federation president, Sam Nyamweya for misappropriation of Harambee Stars funds.
The DCI also recommended that the federation’s CEO, Michael Esakwa and acting finance manager Samson Cherop also be charged with the same offences.
“The police recommends that the suspects be charged with offences of conspiracy to defraud, stealing by agent and fraudulent false accounting,” the statement read.
In a statement released on Monday, the Director of Public Prosecution Keriako Tobiko, confirmed the receipt of the files from the DCI who had interrogated Nyamweya on November 17 over the delay of Harambee Stars trip ahead of their 2018 World Cup second round; return leg pre-qualifier against Cape Verde.
“CCID Nairobi Area Inquiry File No. 19/2015- Inquiry into how funds amounting to Sh17,241,824 was utilized by Football Kenya Federation in nearly abortive trip by Harambee Stars to Cape Verde,” the statement added.
The federation boss was quizzed why the team had to travel at 8:40pm on the eve of the match despite the Ministry of Sports having released Sh17m for facilitation including paying the outstanding four-match allowances and refund of air tickets to foreign based players.
The team arrived in Praia three hours to the match and were subsequently thrown out of the 2018 Russia World Cup pre-qualifier after going down 2-0 in the return leg to bow out on a 2-1 aggregate defeat.
Nyamweya who was grilled for over six hours by the DCI, had blamed the ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture for the delay that saw Stars stranded for 10 hours before Cabinet Secretary for Sports Hassan Wario arrived at Wilson Airport at 8pm to end the stalemate.
The team departed on a chartered plane with the ministry saying they had wired the monies to FKF account four days before the scheduled date of departure.
The development has tainted Nyamweya’s run for a second term re-election as FKF president and it’s yet to be seen if he will remain in the ballot.
