•She was categorical that the decision by the government on November 11 to disband FKF, fully adhered to the Laws of Kenya and followed a legally prescribed process, adding it had a defined roadmap.
•The CS said she was disappointed by Fifa's general attitude towards legally established governments.
Image: FILE
Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed wants the world football governing body, Fifa, to reinforce government's efforts in cleaning up the mess in Kenyan football.
In a hard-hitting press statement released on Saturday afternoon, the CS faulted Fifa's decision to suspend the country from football activities but, nonetheless, pledged to work closely with the body to put matters straight.
“We expected Fifa to take notice of all the positive developments taking place, allow us to carry on with our legally prescribed mandate to put our own house in order and then work with us on normalization and fresh elections,” said Amina.
The CS said the government would continue cleaning up, putting systems of accountability in place as well as a draft constitution that is fully aligned to the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the Fifa statute and globally recognized values.
“We intend at the same time to engage Fifa as we have continued doing over the last threeand a half months. We intend to keep it informed as we have done until now on the going cases, investigations and the actions that we are taking,” she said.
Amina said she hoped Fifa will reciprocate and keep Kenyans informed on actions they intend to take with respect to issues the government has raised on suspected misappropriation of their resources.
She was categorical that the decision by the government on November 11 to disband FKF, fully adhered to the Laws of Kenya and followed a legally prescribed process, adding it had a defined roadmap.
“The decision was taken after it became crystal clear that the manner in which FKF was managing Kenya’s football growth and development was unsustainable and untenable.
“The lack of accountability for monies entrusted to it by the government and people of Kenya was raised with FKF on many occasions to no avail,” she said.
“We tried on many occasions to bring the matter which had festered for long to the attention of Fifa with no successas well. It seemed to us at times that Fifa and FKF were reading from the same book.”
Amina said football in Kenya had deteriorated at all levels due to this mismanagement and had led to a public outcry.
“The Government has a responsibility to its citizenry to act in the public interest at all times.
“The approach taken by FKF to become a law unto themselves and ignore its stakeholders,discourage our youth and make it clear that they had neither talent nor a future infootball, firing and hiring of coaches in total disregard for signed contracts and theinherent conflict of interest that was always present, demanded action from somewhereand the Registrar took action anchored on our laws,” she observed.
The CS said she was disappointed by Fifa's general attitude towards legally established governments.
“Fifa does not relate to governments and stakeholders. It considers them a nuisance,” said Amina
“Fifa, however, still expects the same governments and stakeholders to fund football with no transparency and/or accountability in total disregard for national laws, institutions, values and practices.”
Amina said the government tried unsuccessfully to communicate with Fifa even with respect to resources that Fifa and Caf quietly gives federations —which they suspect were not being used as intended — to no avail.
“It is now even suspected that in some cases there was double payment. We paid for activities and services that had already been paid for by Caf.
“Fifa, in fact, in our case and many others, showed so much reluctance to engage with government, for good order, for universal principles of accountability and transparencythat we were left with no choice than to allow it to manage football as we complied withour laws and demanded accountability for monies entrusted to the Federation for use on our youth.”
Amina said she hopes Caf will reconsider its decision on Harambee Starlets who had fully prepared for the Africa Women Cup of Nations qualifiers.
“The Caretaker Committee that I legally established and that is fully recognized by our laws, has been hard at work. They have organized matches between our team and Uganda, Rwanda and Egypt and paid allowances on time, and leveled the playing field between male and female referees and players. It needs to be celebrated.”
Amina said they learnt about the sanction through the media.
“We instead learnt through the mediaof a suspension based on government interference.”