Kenya Volleyball Federation has appealed Confederation of African Volleyball's decision to award Cameroon the continental women's 2020 Olympic Games qualifiers hosting rights.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that CAVB, under the leadership of Egyptian Emr Elwani, is also facing a similar petition from the Algerian federation, who are contesting Egypt’s hosting rights for the men’s qualifiers.
KVF president Waithaka Kioni revealed that he had written to both the continental and world governing bodies to contest the decision for the tournament set for between January 6 and 12, 2020.
Cameroon and Kenya were the only two countries who were bidding to host the tournament. Kioni intimated that according to how the CAVB have handled the communications of the results of the bidding process, there were some dubious dealings under the table. The bidding deadline was midday Cairo time last Tuesday.
“We submitted our final bid of 8,150 US Dollars seven minutes to the deadline (noon) on October 1 but around 3pm, I got an email indicating that Cameroon had won the bid. They had put in 8,500 USD,” narrated Kioni who is also one of the CAVB vice presidents.
Wanting to verify if indeed Cameroon had put in their bid within the time frame provided, Kioni’s request has not been granted as of yesterday evening.
“I requested CAVB president (Elwani) to just forward me Cameroon’s bid email that would tell if their bid reached Cairo (CAVB’s headquarters) before the deadline, but it has not been forthcoming. Consequently, I have appealed the decision and copied the FIVB,” recounted the official, also National Olympics Committee of Kenya and Team Kenya Chef De Mission to Tokyo 2020.
At the same time, Kioni expressed his support for the national women’s volleyball team Malkia Strikers saying: “We believe in ourselves. We are better than them. We should not despair nor be discouraged, we can beat Cameroon on their soil."
During the last Olympics qualification tournament in 2016 in Yaoundé, Kenya fell to their hosts Cameroon in the finals, a feat that saw the Central African nation make their maiden appearance at the most coveted global multi-sports carnival
