NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 4 – In under one week in office, new Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba has provided a solution to the football situation by agreeing a return to office formula with the Football Kenya Federation.
Ababu met with the entire FKF National Executive Committee (NEC) on Friday afternoon, a week after meeting with president Nick Mwendwa and CEO Barry Otieno and agreed that the Federation will be back in office, bar Mwendwa, until he finishes his issues with a case currently in court.
According to the agreement, which has also been sent to FIFA, Mwendwa will stay away from matters of the Federation until he clears his name in court.
“We need our football back but also not closing our eyes to certain realities. Realities of integrity, good governance in football management because at the end of the day the success and level of performance of football depends on certain irreducible minimums,” CS Ababu said on Friday afternoon.
“I have been very candid with them (FKF) on all these issues,” Ababu added.
Mwendwa has affirmed that he has agreed in writing to step away from the running of the Federation until his matter in court is resolved.
He said; “There have been efforts going on in court to get me to resolve the matter there and that has not been resolved. I have agreed a position with the CS. We stand for integrity as FKF and we want to be known as people who are not doing funny things.”
Mwendwa further added; “We have agreed that I will allow my team to continue without any interference. We all want football to come back. I believe in a short period of time, these issues will be dealt with/”
“I know I will receive fairness unlike before when we were being arrested on Fridays. Now that I have confidence in fairness, I have agreed in writing and I have no problem that I will be back when this is resolved, whenever that will be,” said Mwendwa.
Now, with the officials allowed to get back to office as from Saturday, the next steps will be to wait for FIFA to send a communication that Kenya’s suspension has been lifted.
FIFA is set for a Congress just before the World Cup where most likely this will happen.
Kenya has been suspended by FIFA since February after former Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed disbanded the Federation and replaced it with a Caretaker Committee, later turned into a Transition Committee.
While FIFA made it clear that the only route back to international football was when and if the Federation returns to office, the former CS appeared to have made little effort to resolve the issues.
Ababu, during his vetting and while taking office last week, said that resolving the FIFA suspension was top of his list.
“I am a real football person. I am a sports person and I feel the pain in a real sense. Football is livelihood. Those young people who have not been on the pitch for one year have responsibilities to take care of. Freezing them out of football is literally sending them down the drain. For this to delay any further is unacceptable,” Ababu said as to why he had to act in speed.
Kenya will however still be out of international football, save for friendly matches, as most qualifiers have either concluded or continuing.
The qualifiers for the 2023 Cup of Nations have already commenced while the qualifiers for the Under-17 and Under-23 AFCON have concluded. The AFCON U20 qualifiers are currently on.
The men and women’s Champions League matches are already on as well.
