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David Ndolo and Charles Thuku

The Ministry of Sports yesterday asked  Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to hold an all-inclusive election witin the soonest time possible.

Joe Okudo, the Principal Secretary at the ministry, directed FKF to relax some of its rules which inhibit candidates from vying for elective posts.

Okudo said rules that a candidate must have a football team playing in FKF leagues for the last three years coupled with a prohibitive Sh 300,000 nomination fees to contest are untenable.

He argued that as long as candidates pass the integrity test from State investigating agencies like Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and Ethics and Anti-Corruption  Commission(EACC), they should be cleared to vie for that is the threshold they need to participate in the elections.

“Such decrees by the federation going to the belated polls are dumbfounding and need not be applied and this should not be construed to mean that the ministry is interfering with the elections.

What the ministry is merely doing is advising the federation on the way forward,” said Okudo. 

He further said that the officials been implicated in scandals should first clear their names before being allowed to vie.

In the meantime, Okudo said the ministry is concerned with the delay by Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) to expedite the case in which FKF has been sued by football stakeholders over certain flaws ahead of the repeat elections.

“The ministry has all along supported SDT but all we want is for it to deliver all arbitrations early for football activities to continue.

We will also support any rightfully elected FKF candidate as well as any decision that will be taken by Fifa,” he said.

However, such support, as stated by Okudo, is likely to tilt the federation’s way given that barely two months ago, Fifa rubbished the decision by SDT to send home incumbent FKF president Nick Mwendwa and the National Executive Committee insisting that they are legally in office.

In its defense, SDT said the ruling was in accordance with the Kenyan law and any disagreement with the decision can only be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Separately, Okudo said the ministry was looking forward to a binding decision in the impasse to execute its mandate including seeing to it that the sports stadia that had been under renovation are completed.

He said that Nyayo National Stadium where a huge percentage of repairs has been completed will have CCTV cameras installed to check on trouble-shooters during matches and which may result into destruction of the facility at the cost of the government.