Harambee Stars players celebrate after winning the CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup. PHOTO/Timothy Olobulu
NAIROBI, Kenya Mar 15- Despite not playing any FIFA friendly match since their CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup win in December, Harambee Stars have moved one place up in the latest FIFA rankings released on Thursday to sit at 105th.
However, Harambee Stars have an opportunity to improve on the ranking when they play Comoros and Central African Republic in friendly matches in Morocco on March 24 and 27 respectively.
Both teams are placed way below Kenya in the ranking. Of the two, the Central African Republic is the highest ranked, having moved one place to position 124. Chad are placed a lowly 168th having made no improvement in the latest ranking.
Uganda retained their position at 78th but still remained East Africa’s best ranked team while Rwanda moved two places up to 112th, Burundi moved a similar distance to 142 while Tanzania remained at 148.
There was no change in the African top four with Tunisia, Sengal, DR Congo and Morocco retaining their best placed status at 23rd, 27th, 29th and 42nd place in the world.
It is the same with the world’s top five, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina and Belgium retaining their status quo. All this however is expected to change over the next ranking as the FIFA friendly match window opens on March 19.
Meanwhile, Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has today announced that all teams taking part in the Women Premier league will be entitled to a Sh750,000 grant per season, this money coming off FIFA’s funds for women development.
FKF boss Nick Mwendwa says this will be a good step to enable the teams meet their obligations while also adding that the federation will take care of the match venue hiring and payment of referees for all games.
At the same time, the federation says plans are there to ensure the same grant is rolled out to teams playing in the second tier Division One League.
