Fresh chaos hits Kenyan football
Afp, Nairobi
Kenyan football was thrown into fresh chaos on Saturday as delegates to a special assembly of the governing board, called off its by leaders, went ahead with the meeting and sacked its top two officials.Less than a week after FIFA banned Kenya from international play for failing to implement reforms, dissident members of the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) passed no-confidence motions against their chairman and general secretary. Leaders of the revolt said they were protesting a failure to act on a report accusing the federation of corruption and not informing its members about the FIFA ban, which was confirmed Wednesday by the world governing body. "We cannot continue to deal with people who have no respect for the constitution," said Peter Ochiel, the head of a local KFF branch who chaired the meeting after chair Alfred Sambu and secretary Dan Omino cancelled it. "We are 160 delegates and the federation does not belong to only two people," he said, explaining why the membership had voted to fire Sambu and Omino, who are seeking help from FIFA to resolve the matter. Ochiel claimed the vote had been unanimous among those present at the closed-door meeting held as Kenya tries to resolve its differences with FIFA, which demands that its two rival leagues be merged into one 18-team division. But Sambu rejected the vote of the rump meeting, insisting that it had been called off to await new suggestions from FIFA and that he remained chairman. "I am not aware there was a meeting," he told AFP. "As chairman, I called the meeting and then called it off. I called it off so that we can get a clear picture of what FIFA wants and then I can go ahead and tell the delegates. "Those who organised the meeting are rebels and these rebels had no quorum to make any decision," he said. "As far as I am concerned, I am still the chairman of KFF." FIFA first suspended Kenya for three months in 2004 for government interference but the situation was reversed after the country agreed to draw up new statutes. Recent problems have included deadly fan violence, physical attacks on rival KFF officials, a match-fixing allegation and clashes over the formation of the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) to run Kenyan football on a professional basis.
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