The Kenya Cup league will now kick off on February 27.
The championship had been set to start a fortnight earlier but a league and fixtures committee meeting with Kenya Cup chairmen pushed the start of the league to the end of next month.
Multiple sources who attended the meeting said Mwamba, Impala and Nondies wanted the league to kick off on March 6 to facilitate pre-season training for their clubs but were overruled by the Kenya Rugby Union who said a late start to the league may compromise Simbas preparations for the Africa Gold Cup which is due to start in either June or July.
The Championship playoff is slated for this weekend with Northern Suburbs taking on United States International University (USIU) with former Kenya Cup champions Mean Machine in a curtain-raiser to the start of the league.
"Let's see how those two games will go. Covid-19 protocols will be put in place for the matches and this will give us an assessment to what we need to do before the Kenya Cup starts in a month's time,” added the source.
The winner of the Suburbs v USIU match will face Strathmore Leos on January 30 while the winner of the Wasps v Machine encounter will take on Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST).
The semifinal winners will replace Western Bulls and Kisumu RFC, who relegated from Kenya Cup. The league will be played in a one-off format, stretching for 11 weeks with the semis and finals slated for late May through June.
Teams will be tested every fortnight and fans will not be allowed into venues in keeping up with Covid-19 protocols.
All Nairobi-based clubs will conduct their Covid-19 tests today at the RFUEA ground while the Nakuru and Kakamega-based clubs will follow suit in a week's time.
Under the Ministry of Sports Covid-19 protocols, only Shujaa and Lionesses were given the mandate to resume training in preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic in July.
The Kenya Cup and other clubs were allowed to attend gym sessions to keep themselves fit but with limited skill work as players adhere to social-distancing protocols.
