Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has been handed a temporary reprieve after a Mombasa High Court barred the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) from entertaining any proceedings against the Federation until a petition before it is mentioned on June 29.
The petition was filed by FKF Coast National Executive Committee Members Gabriel Mghendi and Lilian Nadundu as the first and second petitioners respectively.
The petitioners will file their submissions on June 19 with the first interested party [Football Kenya Federation] ordered to file their submissions by June 25.
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In an order dated June 16, the matter will be mentioned on June 29 to confirm and fix the date of the ruling.
“An interim conservatory order staying all the proceedings and further proceedings against Football Kenya Federation at the Sports Disputes Tribunal and is hereby granted forthwith until June 29, 2020,” read part of the order obtained by Goal.
As a result, the SDT is expected to postpone the KPL vs FKF ruling regarding the annulment of the Kenyan Premier League.
The Federation had cancelled the top tier on April 30, crowning Gor Mahia in the process. However, the league managers were not happy with the move and after trying to engage the Federation in vain, they raised the matter with the Tribunal in conjunction with Chemelil Sugar.
Submissions were made on Friday, June 12, with chairman John Ohaga setting the end of June as the day for the ruling.
The SDT had twice cancelled the FKF elections citing a failure to meet set standards.
A couple of weeks ago, the incumbent Nick Mwendwa hit at Tribunal Chairman Ohaga stating he should stop interfering with the Federation business.
“The Tribunal has now been turned into a consultancy firm asking stakeholders to give the way forward, since when did a court ask stakeholders to speak on matters of FKF?” Mwendwa told Goal.
“Ohaga should simply stay away, keep off anything to do with football in the country, I have never seen a judge meddling into football matters the way Ohaga is doing, he is even telling stakeholders he will do away with the FKF constitution, to bring another constitution which is not possible.”
The agitated FKF boss wondered why Ohaga had placed so much effort to arbitrate on football matters whereas he has a case – for a swimming association before him – which he is yet to make a ruling.
“It is unfortunate even with several cases lying in his desk, Ohaga has decided to put much effort on football matters,” Mwendwa continued.
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“He [Ohaga] has even gone ahead to create a forum where he wants people to discuss FKF elections. Who is he?
“If he wants to contest for the top seat, let him come clear, we have other associations suffering the same issues but he has decided to ignore them.
“As FKF, we don’t have any faith in the tribunal anymore, we are asking the chairman of the tribunal [Ohaga] to stop interfering with football matters once and for all, and allow us to do the elections. He is not a member of football and cannot host a meeting for stakeholders.”
