Guidelines for sports return ‘out this week’
Sports Permanent Secretary Joe Okudo yesterday revealed that new guidelines on resumption of sports activities will be announced this week.
He said only after the guidelines have been made public can different federations plan for safe resumption of sports.
The disclosure comes after heightened disquiet over resumption of sports activities which seems to be taking longer than expected with local sector administrators and sportsmen voicing concerns.
People Sport understands that Sports ministry has done its part by ensuring all the protocols are met by the federations before the resumption to action and they forwarded the regulations to the Ministry of Health over a week ago, but their response has taken longer than expected, fueling claims that there is a frosty relationship between the two government departments.
But Okude dismissed the claims saying they have a good working relationship with the Ministry of Health.
The continued delay of sports resumption seems to be affecting the calendars of most federations.
The Confederation of African Football expects FKF to submit the country’s representative for the Champions League and Confederation Cup competitions by June 30, meaning that they need to end the league in less than two months.
Athletics Kenya also has a busy calendar that includes several major events like the Tokyo Olympics and the world U20 championships and Continental Tour set for Nairobi.
“Our technical teams from both ministries have been working on the existing guidelines to update them with new provisions around issues such as vaccination and bubble camps which were not in when we developed the protocols the first time,” Okudo said.
President Uhuru Kenyatta on May 1 directed that the resumption of sporting activities be guided by the regulations to be issued by MoH jointly with the Sports ministry, but over later there are still no signs of resumption of sports.
Many sports federations are itching for return of action but Okudo is pleading for more time.
“Resumption measures are done by MoH through a consultative process which initially involved all federations.
The initial resumption of sports guidelines took that into account now we are only updating that with lessons learnt.”
