FKF bodies fail to honour Caretaker Committee consultative meeting as only two out of 48 turn-up
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) branches yesterday boycotted a meeting convened by the Caretaker Committee at the Nyayo Stadium to discuss the way forward for Kenyan football.
Out of the 48 branches only two sent representatives to the meeting: Kisii which was represented by its chairman Jezreel Mbegera and vice-chairman Moses Saiti and Nairobi East whose treasurer Erick Luyali was present.
The agenda of the meeting was to brief the branches on the current status of Kenyan football and the way forward, discussion of Fifa suspension and deliberation on the state of compliance of football stakeholders. The Committee had also asked the branch officials to carry Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) clearance certificate and certificate of good conduct to the meeting.
“On November 12 last year, we were tasked to conduct all football affairs in accordance with the constitution of FKF. We were also required to work with stakeholders to ensure that the FKF constitution is compliant with the constitution and laws of Kenya in addition to Fifa statutes and regulations. We were also tasked to ensure that there is compliance with the Sports Act and to that effect we decided to invite the branches for deliberations,” Caretaker Committee chairman Aaron Ringera said after the botched meeting.
He added: “ We asked 48 branches to come so that we brief them on the status of football and engage them on the way forward, but only two turned up, so we could not have any meaningful dialogue with the branches. We do not take the no-show personally because maybe there were reasons they could not make it, but we will soon chat the way forward.”
Nairobi East chairman Amos Otieno said the Committee had no mandate to summon branches for a meeting and said that was the sole reason why members of his branch and many others did not honour the meeting.
“They don’t have that mandate. And how can you summon branches to come with documents to a meeting, was it a vetting process? All the documents they needed are at the federation headquarters which they can easily get access to,” posed Otieno.
On Tuesday, the Committee had also been told to stick to its mandate and stop interfering with the running of football affairs in the branches. The branches made it clear that they were not answerable to the Committee and will not, therefore, honour yesterday’s meeting.
They asked the committee to be mindful of their powers and act within the ambit of their obligation in conducting the affairs of FKF and stop overstepping their limits.
“Your mandate is to conduct the affairs of FKF in accordance with its constitution. Had the Cabinet Secretary intended to grant you unlimited powers nothing would have been easier for her to say so,” FKF Murang’a Branch chairman Robert Macharia said.
Macharia said the powers of the caretaker committee which are equal to the disbanded National Executive Committee (NEC) do not spill over to other mandates of the undisbanded bodies like the General Assembly or other bodies, and should, therefore, exercise their powers with informed caution.
“FKF in its constitution has established bodies and institutions and laid down their terms of reference. Those of us at branches have our work cut out and we are doing it,” Macharia offered.
This comes on the backdrop of another threat by a number of Division One clubs not to honour this weekend matches because of failure of financial support, poor officiating, poor and timely communication and lack off appeals committee, with a number of pending cases unresolved.
