Fifa dismisses SDT ruling, upholds FKF Electoral Code
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa and Co will breath a sigh of relief after world football governing body Fifa yesterday appeared to trash decisions made by the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) on March 17 and supported the current office bearers in the ongoing elections that has seen the local body nullify the exercise twice.
Fifa’s Chief Officer in charge of Member Associations Veron Mosengo-Omba in a two paged letter addressed to FKF Chief Executive Officer Barry Otieno, exuded confidence in the manner the federation had conducted it’s polls and poured cold water on the land mark ruling which had among other things proposed the formation of a Normalization Committee to take over the running of the sport and oversee fresh elections under a new Electoral Code, since the term of the current office bearers had expired on February 10, 2020.
Just as People Sport had reported in their Wikendi edition, the global body dismissed the thoughts of a Normalization Committee and reaffirmed that the current FKF Executive Committee members, including its president, shall remain in office.
“We acknowledge receipt of the decision of the SDT rendered on March 17, 2020, which challenges the eligibility criteria contained in the FKF Electoral Code adopted by the FKF General Assembly on January 25, 2020,” said Mosengo-Omba.
He added: “We would like to highlight that the FKF statutes do not expressly recognize the jurisdiction of the SDT as being the ultimate arbitration forum at national level.
Moreover, we note that the SDT is not a national arbitration tribunal in the sense of Fifa circular 1010 dated December 20, 2005.
Despite all these, FKF surprisngly subjected to the SDT by its own initiative while it was not obliged to do so as per its statutes.
Therefore, we wish to emphasize that the relevant SDT ruling has no legal effect on Fifa.”
Fifa in the letter upheld the FKF Electoral Code and the Electoral Board, because they were approved and elected respectively by the FKF General Assembly at the beginning of the year and no FKF member opposed it during the meeting.
Mosengo-Omba revealed that Sports Minister Amina Mohamed had requested a meeting with Fifa officials in Zurich on January 30, 2020 to air concerns of the government and a section of football stakeholders, but she later cancelled the meeting at her own request, following a meeting her office held with FKF to resolve the strained situation which affects Kenyan football.
“In this context and for the sake of peace, Fifa is ready to meet as soon as possible with the FKF, the SDT representatives, the Minister of Sports and any other relevant stakeholders in order to find a way forward.
In this respect, should the world health situation not evolve positively by April 6, 2020, we shall contact FKF to explore other possibilities including a meeting by video conference,” he said.
