After being stripped of the bid to host the Africa Nations championship Kenya has now turned their attention to hosting either the FIFA Under 17 or Under 20 tournaments slated for 2019.
The bid may, however, be time barred since, according to the world governing body, deadline for member associations to show interest was on July 7 this year.
As per the time-lines, July 14 saw Fifa send interested countries bidding and host documents and August 18 saw member associations reconfirm their interest in hosting the tournament. On November 1 member associations will submit a definite bid for the two tournaments. Rwanda have expressed an interest in hosting the tournament after a successful CHAN event in 2016.
FKF president Nick Mwendwa said CAF has given them a lifeline and told them to bid for the global youth show in two years time.
“India will be hosting the event this year and FIFA have said it will be rotating around the continents so CAF have instructed us to bid for that tournament and I am confident with the support of the government, we can achieve that dream,” said Mwendwa.
He observed that refurbishment works going on in the various stadiums which were earmarked for Chan will go an as planned.
“By the time we send our bid document, the five stadiums currently being refurbished or built will be ready for inspection by the FIFA inspectors,” added Mwendwa.
He has advised county governments to build new stadiums in order to raise the profile of football in the counties.
“Going forward I am urging county governments to build stadiums with a capacity of at least 8,000 so that we can diversify our sports infrastructure to various parts of the country,” noted Mwendwa.
Sports permanent secretary Peter Kaberia said the political climate in the country was the key decision for Kenya losing the rights.
”Due to the current political environment in the country, CAF were of the opinion that the political climate here was not conclusive. They were unsure if we were going to host a successful tournament,” said Kaberia.
Kaberia who was part of the Kenya delegation to the CAF meeting said they tried to plead the country’s case to the CAF bigwigs but to no avail during the meeting.
“We tried our level bet to tell them that the election will come and go and we can move on the tournament in January but they were adamant that the time is too short ” added Kaberia.