World soccer's governing body has suspended Kenya from
international competition for failing to respect signed agreements
and for recurrent problems in its soccer federation, a FIFA source
said on Tuesday.
"Kenya has been suspended indefinitely until they implement the
(Cairo) agreements," the source, who declined to be named, told
Reuters from Cape Town, where a FIFA delegation and the South
African 2010 World Cup organising committee are meeting.
"Kenyan football must be organised according to FIFA principles.
The ball is now in the camp of the Kenyan committee until they
implement the agreements."
The world governing body wants Kenya to implement a 28-point
agreement signed in Cairo in January by FIFA, the chairman of the
Kenya Football Federation (KFF), Alfred Sambu, African soccer's
ruling body CAF and representatives of Kenyan clubs and government
officials.
KFF Secretary General Dan Omino said the federation had not yet
received any official communication from FIFA.
"We can only comment after receiving official communication but
I have been informed about the ban verbally," he said.
"We have called a special delegates meeting for Saturday to
chart the way forward."
The east African nation's most popular sport is in chaos with
two rival organisations running parallel Premier Leagues.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter had given the KFF until Oct. 18 to
sort out the mess or face sanctions.
FIFA wants 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 on October 2 involving the rival bodies and a
unified league was due to start two weeks later.
But both sides then came up with parallel fixtures which ended
with a farcical situation when only a few matches were played. The
same 18 clubs are competing in both competitions with an extra two
in the 20-team league.
The KFF's executive committee met last week and said they had
resolved to stick with a 20-team league.
The national side had been competing in Group Six of the
qualifying campaign for the African Nations Cup and made a poor
start, losing their opening two matches to Eritrea and Angola.
(China Daily October 26, 2006)