FIFA calls off Zurich meeting with Kenya

FIFA has cancelled a planned meeting with Kenyan officials in its Zurich headquarters where talks would have centred on the county’s upcoming football federation elections.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) officials, representatives from the Ministry of Sports and Sports Disputes Tribunal chairman John Ohaga were part of the entourage that had been invited to the meeting.

FIFA had needed assurance that the elections would be conducted by end of March with all parties invited to dissect issues that led to the cancellation initial polls scheduled for December 7 last year and whether they had been resolved.

But according to Otieno, the commitment by the government through the Ministry of Sports from Nairobi that elections will be done before April this year was enough to convince FIFA to cancel the would-be meeting.

“We did not travel. We had a meeting with the CS Amina (Mohamed) on Wednesday and we agreed on all the issues that FIFA wanted addressed before them. Satisfied with our deliberations and submissions as communicated from here (Nairobi), there was no need to travel,” Otieno exclusively told Citizen Digital.

FIFA was keen to find out the view of the government on the electoral process, and explain their position in situations similar to Kenya’s vis-a-vis football governance.

Ohaga ordered the nullification of last year’s elections on grounds of illegitimate FKF Electoral Board and lack of enough public participation in development of the electoral code.

With the current regime’s tenure ending on February 10 this year, wants the elections done in the shortest time possible to ensure the officials are in office by mandate as opposed to court order.

SDT ruled that Mwendwa’s team remains in office until elections are held, a process whose execution saw a big step forward on Tuesday following the unanimous vote on the electoral code as well as the elections board in a Special General Meeting (SGM).

“The new board will meet next week and kickoff their operations towards the elections immediately. They are th ones to give the eleborate dates for the events leading to the elections, a process we expect to be over by end of March,” told Mwendwa after the SGM at a Nairobi hotel.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has not responded yet to the request to clear some of the sensitive debts FKF owes different parties, including the Adel Amrouche’s KSh108 million which puts Kenya in danger of being locked out of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

It was understandably expected the matter would be canvassed during the Zurich meeting, but according to FKF, no concrete response has been made yet and was not part of their discussions on Wednesday.