| |  Kenya Home Page | | | | Fifa set date for Kenya's future |  Fifa will rule on whether to readmit Kenya into international football when its Associations Committee meets on 31 January.
The announcement followed a consultative meeting in Zurich Monday between a delegation of Kenyan football officials and Fifa chaired by Jerome Champagne, the Special Delegate to Fifa President Sepp Blatter.
During the meeting, described as a positive step towards the normalisation of football in Kenya, Fifa warned that government interference in the running of Kenyan football may jeopardise the country's immediate return to the international fold.
Fifa, however, renewed its encouragement to all Kenyan clubs to register with the Fifa-recognised leadership of the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) by the 21 January deadline.
SOURCE: BBC Sport | | Fifa recommends Kenya suspension |  Fifa's Associations Committee has recommended that Kenya be suspended from international football for recurrent problems within the country's game.
At a meeting in the Swiss city Zurich on Wednesday, the committee proposed the suspension of the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) for failing to respect a 28-point agreement signed with Fifa in January.
The committee proposed to Fifa's Emergency Committee that the KFF be suspended for ignoring the signed agreement as well as the recurrent problems in the association.
The Associations Committee also forwarded the file to the world governing body's Disciplinary Committee, suggesting it initiate proceedings against the leading officials in the KFF.
A Fifa source told BBC Sport that it is not known when either the Emergency Committee, headed up by Fifa president Sepp Blatter, or the Disciplinary Committee will next meet.
The KFF incurred Fifa's wrath for failing to put a number of measures in place by a Blatter-imposed deadline of Wednesday 18 October.
One stand-out problem was the presence of two separate elite leagues within the country, which directly opposed Fifa's desires.
Fifa wanted Kenya Premier League Limited (KPL) to run a league featuring 18 clubs but the KFF set up a company, KFF PL, to run a 20-team league.
A meeting was held between the rival bodies on 2 October and a unified league was to start two weeks later.
Yet both sides then came up with parallel fixtures which ended with a farcical situation at the weekend when one team was scheduled to play two different matches on the same day in the two different leagues.
At a high-level meeting involving officials from Fifa, KFF and the Kenyan government in Cairo in January, a 28-point roadmap to safeguard the East African nation's football was signed.
Yet KFF officials failed to implement all the points, one reason why the Associations Committee has recognised the country's suspension.
KFF secretary-general Dan Omino declined to comment when contacted by BBC Sport on Wednesday.
Between June and August 2004, Fifa suspended Kenya from international football for governmental interference in the running of the sport.
In separate developments, the Associations Committee said it will continue to monitor football in both Algeria and Nigeria very closely.
SOURCE: BBC Sport
| | FIFA bans Kenya from international competition | World soccer's governing body FIFA has suspended Kenya from international competition for failing to respect signed agreements and for problems involving the national federation, a FIFA source said on Tuesday.
'Kenya has been suspended indefinitely until they implement the (Cairo) agreements,' the source, who declined to be identified, told Reuters from Cape Town where a FIFA delegation and the South African 2010 World Cup organising committee are meeting.
FIFA wants Kenya to implement a 28-point agreement signed in Cairo in January.
CULLED from SOCCERNET.com | | Kenyan chiefs criticised over looming FIFA ban | Furious Kenyan players and fans said on Thursday they would demand the sacking of local soccer chiefs if the east African nation is banned from international competition.
World governing body FIFA on Wednesday proposed that the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF) be suspended for failing to respect signed agreements and for recurrent problems in the association.
National team captain Musa Otieno, who plays for South African Premier League side Engen Santos, blamed officials for the chaos in Kenyan soccer.
'FIFA had warned them many weeks ago and they did not heed due to their individual interests. They will bear the blame if FIFA bans us because of their ineptitude,' he told Reuters by telephone from Cape Town.
FIFA forwarded Kenya's file to the Disciplinary Committee, suggesting that it initiate proceedings against the leading officials in the association.
Kenyan soccer has been in disarray for the past two years but the situation worsened last month when the start of the Premier League season was delayed after two rival bodies organised parallel leagues.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter stepped in and gave Kenya an Oct. 18 deadline to sort out the mess or face sanctions.
The world governing body wants Kenya to implement a 28-point agreement signed in Cairo in January by FIFA, KFF chairman Alfred Sambu, African soccer's ruling body CAF and representatives of Kenyan clubs and government officials.
FIFA wants Kenya Premier League Limited (KPL) to run a league with 18 clubs but the KFF has set up a company, KFF PL, to run a 20-team league. This has culminated in the two leagues running simultaneously.
Sambu said he will present FIFA's official communication to the national executive committee after which a special delegates' meeting will be summoned to discuss the matter.
Kenya's Commissioner for Sport, Gordon Oluoch, accused FIFA of being hard on the KFF.
'The reasons they are giving are flimsy and don't warrant the sort of action they are proposing to take on Kenya. They should send a fact-finding mission to Kenya to see what is happening on the ground,' he said.
But Otieno, whose 'Harambee Stars' team appear to have no realistic chance of reaching the 2008 African Nations Cup finals after a poor start to qualifying, blames KFF officials for the problems affecting Kenyan soccer.
'For the past decade, I haven't seen officials with the interest of the game (at heart). Instead, I see people whose sole interest is to... gain political mileage from the sport,' Otieno said.
Many Kenyan soccer fans are also disillusioned with the way the game is being run.
'We are a laughing stock. Where do you hear of two rival leagues except in Kenya? I personally want FIFA to ban Kenya if this will wake them up,' said Benson Omusula, who cleans cars in Kenya's capital to eke out a living.
SOURCE: soccernet.com | | Fifa warns Kenya over rival leagues |  Fifa has told Kenya's football federation (KFF) it has no mandate to run the country's championship as the release of fixtures for parallel leagues compounded chaos.
KFF and its rival Kenya Premier League (KPL) on Tuesday published match schedules for parallel championships, the second time in as many months this has happened amid a battle for control.
Kenya's top football clubs have split into two factions but Jerome Champagne, Fifa's deputy general secretary, said KFF does not have the right to decide which teams should participate.
"Clubs participating in leagues are not decided by federations, but by independent boards, in this case KPL," Champagne said on Wednesday.
Despite a warning from Fifa president Sepp Blatter for Kenya to sort out the mess by 18 October or face sanctions, both the KFF and the KPL are ploughing their own courses.
Last month the Kenyan government gave one of the two rival bodies an ultimatum to dissolve voluntarily or be forced to deregister.
The government did not say which of the two bodies should close down but observers said it would be KPL.
Kenya was threatened with suspension from all football activity at Fifa's annual congress in Marrakesh in October 2005 because of government interference in the running of the sport.
SOURCE: BBC Sport |
| | | | Desailly blames Kenya for ban |  Former France captain Marcel Desailly says that Kenya only has itself to blame for football woes that led Fifa to ban it indefinitely from the international game.
He said the ban, confirmed on Wednesday by Fifa's Emergency Committee in Zurich, was a wake-up call for the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) to put its chaotic house in order.
"It is a hit," said Desailly, a member of France's 1998 World Cup winning side who is in Kenya to visit football projects funded by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation in the Mathare valley slums outside Nairobi.
"Yes, it is sad, it's a hard hit.
"We will have to see if Kenya is able to react well. Kenya has made a mistake.
"It is now up to the officials to say 'Yes, we have made a mistake, we have to try to work much more to get organised and improve the sport'."
Desailly's former team-mate Bernard Lama quit as Kenya's national team coach last month amid escalating problems in the KFF, which had been given until 18 October to meet Fifa demands for reform or face punitive measures.
One stand-out problem was the presence of two separate elite leagues within the country, which directly opposed Fifa's desires.
It is the second ban in two years for the east African nation.
Fifa first suspended Kenya for three months in 2004 for government interference but the situation was reversed after the country agreed to draw up new statutes.
Recent problems have included losing seasons, deadly fan violence, physical attacks on rival KFF officials, a match-fixing allegation and clashes over the formation of KPL to run Kenyan football on a professional basis.
SOURCE: BBC Sport | | Kenya seek Fifa help over league |  Kenya football authorities say they want Fifa's help to restructure the country's Premier League in a bid to comply with the governing body's conditions for lifting a suspension.
Fifa banned the east African country from international competition on Wednesday for failing to respect signed agreements and for recurrent problems in their federation.
World football's ruling body said the suspension would remain in place until further agreements were fully implemented.
Kenya's most popular sport is in chaos with two rival organisations running parallel Premier Leagues.
Fifa wants Kenya Premier League Limited (KPL) to run a league featuring 18 clubs but the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) has set up a company, KFF PL, to run a 20-team league.
The solution is a merger of the two organisations and Kenyan officials want Fifa to help resolve any differences.
The KFF wants more executive power, including the right to appoint a chief executive and chairman plus 40 percent control.
"The committee was unanimous on the KFF's commitment to fully comply as communicated (by Fifa)," chairman Alfred Sambu said after a KFF committee meeting on Friday.
"But in pursuit of the said compliance, some provisions of the memorandum and articles of KPL appeared to contradict the Fifa statutes.
"Under this apparent legal complexity, the committee resolved to forward the sets of documents to FIFA for perusal and guidance," he said.
The KFF meeting was held at a secret venue in Nairobi after rumours spread that delegates from the provinces, gearing up for the KFF's special general meeting on Saturday, intended to storm it and put their demands on the table.
Kenya sports minister Maina Kamanda said earlier this week he would give the KFF until Saturday to make their position known on the Fifa ban or he would take appropriate action.
SOURCE: BBC Sport | | Kenya questions Fifa's 'double standards' |  Kenyan football officials accused Fifa of applying double standards in its condemnation of the country as they braced for another suspension for the second time in two years.
On Wednesday, Fifa's Associations Committee proposed Kenya's suspension for failing to respect agreements to resolve recurrent problems in the country's football association.
The committee also proposed to forward the file to the Disciplinary Committee which would initiate disciplinary proceedings against some unnamed Kenya Football Federation (KFF) officials.
But KFF general secretary Dan Omino claims that his body has fulfilled all 28 recommendations demanded by Fifa at a meeting in January, while saying that Fifa is relying on misinformation from some local football officials.
"We have people within Kenya who act in defiance of the authority and rules of the KFF and even the statutes of Fifa, and yet have the support of Fifa," said Omino.
"So these problems will continue.
"Before drastic actions are taken against a country, there should be a fact-finding mission to establish what is on the ground.
"If you are going to take a decision about the football future of a whole nation, you should be satisfied that what is causing you to make the decision is what is actually taking place."
Nonetheless, Omino failed to mention the two ongoing separate leagues in Kenya, which are known to antagonise football's world governing body.
Last week, Fifa told the KFF it had no mandate to run the country's championship - yet the KFF continued with its league, in direct competition to the rival Kenya Premier League, last weekend.
Fifa suspended Kenya for three months in 2004 due to governmental interference in the running of the sport.
It is not yet known when Fifa's Emergency or Disciplinary Committees will meet to discuss the future of Kenyan football.
SOURCE: BBC Sport
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