‘New top f****t season delayed by a week’
Barry Silah @obel_barry
The highly anticipated return of the Kenyan Premier League, also known as Betking Premier League, will have to wait a while following postponement of the original date by Football Kenya Federation.
The League Management body had already released fixtures of the 2020/21 calendar which was slated to start this Friday, November 20, after a nine-month break due to Covid-19.
Now the league opening date has been pushed further to November 28.
FKF president Nick Mwendwa yesterday alluded to logistics as being part of the challenge.
“The new season will now kick-off on November 28 and not this Friday (November 20) as earlier planned.
We have a number of logistical issues that need to be done, including Covid-19 tests for all teams,” said Mwendwa in a statement.
This is coming with the Ministry of Sports yet to approve the return of contact sports which remain suspended indefinitely.
No official word has been released yet by the ministry putting paid to further doubts if the dates will be honoured.
A lot of teams are yet to complete or begin testing their squads for coronavirus which is considered mandatory by the Ministry of Health before engagement in any activity.
After a busy transfer window, now teams are expected to get down to the most pressing concern that is health management of players and officials through regular tests.
However, the biggest bottleneck now cropping up and threatening to put the league in limbo is the grievance by the Kenya Premier League clubs over being bypassed in football management.
A section of club chairmen have petitioned current KPL Chairman Ambrose Rachier to immediately institute a general meeting to discuss issues concerning rights holding which they argued had been taken over by FKF against the original agreement.
At the same time, the move by the FKF National Executive Committee to appoint a body to run the league did not sit well with the clubs.
