Effects of Fifa ban starting to be felt as coaches graduation cancelled, referee Waweru set to miss Qatar World Cup
Kenya has already started feeling the impact of last week’s suspension by world football governing body Fifa.
On Thursday, Fifa president Gianni Infantino during the body’s council meeting suspended Kenya indefinitely citing government interference and said the suspension would only be lifted after the reinstatement of the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Executive and Secretariat that was suspended by Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed in November. Just a day after the suspension, the national under-17 women team was disqualified from playing a World Cup qualifier against South Africa and now the much-awaited graduation of 25 coaches who have been pursuing Confederation of African Football (CAF) B licence since last year, has been called off.
The graduation was planned for tomorrow at the end of the four-month fully sponsored course by Fifa, but now everything has been stopped.
Major blow
Highly rated Fifa referee Paul Waweru and assistant referee Gilbert Cheruiyot who had been picked to officiate at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, also have their fate hanging by a thread, because if the suspension continues, their dream of featuring in the global showpiece will not be realised. The duo recently featured prominently at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
“It’s very unfortunate to have the suspension. We are going to miss a lot because we had laid down a lot of plans this year that were all being funded by Fifa and they had approved all of them. Now we are back to zero. We had 25 coaches who have been undergoing training for CAF B licence since November 8 last year and were supposed to graduate tomorrow and get their certificates, but that cannot happen now,” FKF Technical Director Michael Amenga told People Sport.
He added: “We had also planned to start an instructors course fully sponsored by Fifa this week, but it won’t take place now. It’s a major blow to our football because in a year we normally have at least 20 courses funded by the world governing body.”
From 2016, Fifa has funded 143 courses in the country, which attracted 4,082 male coaches and 750 female coaches.
