Sofapaka, Rangers set to get walk overs in Cup competition
By Charles Thuku, March 17, 2020Football Kenya Federation (FKF) League and Competitions Committee is set to deliberate the Cup competition’s round of 16 matches which were not played last weekend despite being on schedule.
FKF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Barry Otieno said a binding decision will be made once the committee is furnished with match reports by the commissioners.
However, the obvious is that teams which showed up for the fixtures at the venues and failed to find their opponents are entitled to walk-overs besides getting refund for transport expenses and other logistics.
The affected team include Wazito who were scheduled to play KCB in Nakuru, Sofapaka who were lined up for a game against Bandari in Mombasa and Posta Rangers whose opponents Gor Mahia failed to show up for their match at Nakuru’s Afraha Stadium.
Otieno was non-committal on this observation, only saying a binding decision will come from the committee which cannot form a quorum at the moment due to the partial lock down by the government following the coronavirus epidemic.
“Most of the committee members are not in Nairobi and moreover, it is not possible to expedite these cases swiftly due to the coronovirus,” said Otieno.
On Saturday soon after their game against defending champions Bandari at Mbaraki Sports ground failed to kick off, Sofapaka president Elly Kalekwa expressed concern with the confusion of kick-off time.
“We received communication from FKF that the match would be at 4pm yet Bandari were ready for the match at 2pm and their officials blocked us from accessing the match venue as they said the stadium was not available thereafter. Whose fault was it,?” posed Kalekwa.
In the meantime, the knock-out tournament lived up to its billing as tricky given the manner in which AFC Leopards made it to the last eight.