Kenya handball side for AAG after successful appeal
By Lynette Matheka, August 5, 2019
National women’s handball team will join the rest of the country’s teams to the All Africa Games in camp today in preparation for the continental showpiece after successfully appealing against a decision to lock them out of a qualifier match.
The Kenyan women fell to Uganda 28-24 in the first leg of the Africa Games qualifiers but the return match was not played after it emerged that Kenya had not paid their participation fee.
The participation fee of Sh102, 000 (900euros) was wired late and had not reflected on the regional federation’s account at the scheduled time of the match.
No-show
The Zone Five competition was expected to bring together 10 nations: Tanzania, Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi, South Sudan, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and hosts Uganda to fight for a slot to represent the zone at the All Africa games but only Kenya and the hosts turned up.
The first leg match was played on Saturday, April 27. At the time the regional federation was expecting South Sudan’s arrival for the tournament to be played on a round-robin basis.
With South Sudan a no-show in the long run, a return leg was scheduled for Monday, April 29 but a walkover was handed. Kenya Handball Federation’s (KHF) fixtures secretary Charles Omondi who doubles as Zone Five’s Secretary led Kenya’s appeal at the Confederation of Africa Handball Board. Kenya are set to play Cameroon, Senegal and Uganda.
“The supervisor in that match had no authority to disqualify the team. The right course of action in such a situation is consultations with the head office and only then a decision can be made. Since that was not done, we had grounds for appeal and we received confirmation of participation on Wednesday last week,” said Omondi.
After appealing their case, KHF were put on standby and they went on to forward their budget to the ministry of sports. “We are covered in the current team Kenya budgetary allocation. A team of 18 players will be in camp at Kasarani this evening as we expect to hit the ground running as we only have two weeks to the games,” added Omondi.