Kenyan Premier League whistle blowers get double pay rise, as all their arrears are cleared by federation

Better late than never. Referees officiating in the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Premier League matches have a reason to smile after the local federation increased their salary per a single match by 100 percent.

On top of reviewing their pay in what FKF believes will improve the standards of officiating in the top league, the federation further cleared outstanding dues from the last seven rounds of matches up to the 18 rounds of matches.

FKF National Executive Committee (NEC) for Eastern Anthony Makau, who co-chairs the referees’ committee with Nyanza NEC member John Andere, confirmed to People Sports the review of the referees’ payment from Sh7,000 a match to Sh14,000.

“In every game, a referee officiates going forward, he or she will now be entitled to Ksh14, 000 and this is Ksh7, 000 more than they used to get previously, we deemed that doing so, will help improve the standards of officiating in the league,” Makau told People Sports.

“We also took into consideration that referees deserve better for the services they deliver and it is the reason we moved to clear their outstanding dues and I can confidently say we have paid them up to the round of 18 matches, so we only owe them four rounds of matches as we have so far played 22 matches in the league.”

On when the remaining four rounds of matches will be paid, Maku said: “We are now working on settling the remaining rounds of matches, we are already discussing, we paid a huge amount to settle the previous dues, I don’t want to give a specific date (when we will pay), but we will make sure the remaining rounds are also cleared and are up to date.”

When reached for a comment on the matter, referee Isaac Amisi confirmed the payments being cleared up to the round of 18 matches. Amisi said: “We have received the payment so what is remaining is the last four rounds of matches,” adding: “Round one to 10 matches was paid in December alongside pending dues from last season that includes rounds 30 to 34.”

His sentiments were echoed by referee Badir Yassin, who said: “We thank FKF for their efforts, they have done great by paying us the outstanding dues, and we know whatever is remaining will be sorted out.”

However, Yassin called on FKF to review the number of referees officiating in the Premier League insisting some referees were not getting assignments because of the huge number, which he said would affect their match fitness.

“The only problem is we are too many fighting to officiate in matches which is not healthy because you find a person like me, with all the experience I have in the job missing to officiate a game even for a week or even two weeks because we are over 100,” explained Yassin.

He added: “My humble request to FKF is to review the number of referees, in the top flight, maybe have the number reduced so that those assigned can fit and get a game every week, sometimes it is dangerous because it can affect the referees psychologically and even distress their match fitness.”