The federation boss says he will continue to discharge his duties despite another setback ruling which cancelled elections
The Football Kenya Federation president Nick Mwendwa has stated he is still in charge of football in the country despite the decision by Sports Dispute Tribunal to nullify second elections in a row.
On Tuesday, the SDT ruled the FKF has no mandate to run the national elections and asked the world football governing body, Fifa, to appoint a Normalization Committee to ensure elections are held according to the law.
During his ruling, SDT chairman John Ohaga also made it clear the term of the current National Executive Council (NEC) members has already elapsed and they cannot be involved in the electoral process and should vacate office.
Mwendwa has now told Goal in an exclusive interview as much as they don’t agree with the SDT ruling, they have shared the outcome with Fifa and will remain in office until they get the way forward from Zurich.
“Our constitution says the president remains in office, the ruling says I remain in office the secretariat of FKF is in office and so there is nothing to worry about, despite coronavirus, football has been running smoothly in this country despite all these issues that protagonist have taken to court all the time, we have proven we are a sound federation,” Mwendwa told Goal on Wednesday.
“I want to call upon football lovers, football members that there is an office in place, I am still in charge as per our constitution and the ruling on [Tuesday] and in the next two days we shall find a way forward, Fifa will come back to us and we will have a way forward in the next two days.
“I don’t want to go ahead of what Fifa will say but I will tell you as FKF we do not agree that a tribunal applauds as for our processes and how good they have been, a tribunal agrees with all what we have done and then turns around and effectively cancels a second election in Kenya, we don’t agree with it, we think the tribunal seriously erred in doing so.
“My feeling is there must be other reasons why they were doing so because if you read the ruling you can see that it looks like towards the end of it is when they decided to do so, the rest of the ruling is very sound for us and very clear and had set a very good foundation of how a federation is supposed to be managed in regards to this.”
Mwendwa added: “What we are not sure is why a certain twist at the end to all of a sudden, when the constitution is very clear on how to do things end up to cancel elections, and also what is strange is how a ruling can order Fifa to put in place a normalization committee and what is even further strange is the Electoral Board and Appeals committee remains in place.”
Mwendwa also told Goal they will not challenge the ruling by SDT and further said they are not keen to hold a third election in a row after the previous two have been cancelled.
“We don’t feel there must be a third election, for the third time? I don’t think it is necessary, who knows if another crazy person cannot go to court? It is sad we are in a country where such things can still happen. We shall wait for Fifa and whatever Fifa concludes we shall follow.”
The FKF national elections were scheduled for March 27 with Mwendwa the only candidate cleared to contest for the presidency.
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