Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) presidential aspirant Lordvick Omondi Aduda believes the Sports Registrar is courting world governing body FIFA sanctions after her latest demands to the federation ahead of the eagerly awaited elections later this year.

On Wednesday, the government through the Sports Registrar Rose Wasike wrote a six-page letter addressed to FKF CEO Barry Otieno in which the term limit for the current office bearers took centre stage. Wasike said the current FKF regime led by President Nick Mwendwa, was registered under the Sports Act in 2016 hence officials to have already served for two terms will not be eligible to contest again.

However, according to a key federation official who sought anonymity, the federation was fined Sh500,000 in 2016 for failing to comply with the Sports Act and they complied with the Act in 2017 after the ratification of their new constitution, meaning that: “even if the federation decided to go against its constitution and the Fifa electoral code and follow the Sports Act, the first term began in 2021 when we had our first election under the new dispensation,” the official said.

The statement by Wasike means that Mwendwa, who is yet to announce his interest in defending his seat alongside his deputy Doris Petra, and National Executive Committee (NEC) members Joseph Andere (Nyanza), Muriithi Nabea (Eastern) and Enos Kweya (Western), will not be eligible to defend their various seats.

“Further the second schedule to the Sports Act provides for term of office for elected officials as four years and one further term of four years; hence it means that since FKF was first registered on July 29, 2016, the current officials of FKF will complete their two terms of office on July 29, 2024, and will, therefore, not be eligible to vie in the upcoming elections,” read Wasike’s statement.

The letter continued; “Please note that failure to adhere to my advice will leave me no other option but to reject or cancel the election or in the alternative advise the Cabinet Secretary for Sports to remove the officials whose term would have ended by then to avoid holding an illegal election that might once again lead to various legal tussles like what happened in the 2020 election.”

Reacting to the letter, Aduda, who served as FKF CEO under the Sam Nyamweya regime, insisted it would not be possible for FKF to meet the government’s demands with only six months to the polls, and further warned that FIFA, could deem it as government interference putting the country at risk of sanctions.

“The aspect of the letter are not tenable at the moment because they require a constitutional amendment, so with six or seven months to go and with an AGM already slated for March 16, and a constitutional amendment is not part of the agenda, it will not work and that is where the government will be in conflict with the FIFA standard electoral code rendering all the process as government interference and that can lead to FIFA sanctions,” Aduda told People Sports.

He added: “FKF proceeded to amend the original constitution in 2017, those amendments should have been in tandem with the provisions of the Sports Act more particularly concerning term limits, and it seems therefore, the amended 2017 constitution from the tone of the letter was never registered with the office of the registrar of sports as the law demands.

“I therefore, believe we cannot rubbish FIFA because even if those amendments are occasioned it is FIFA, who will ratify the same before the FKF General Assembly adopts the new constitution, so it is foolhardy to believe that FIFA has got nothing to do with the scenario playing in Kenya football.”