The game plunged into a quagmire in November last year when the Cabinet Secretary for Sports Ambassador Amina Mohamed disbanded the Football Kenya Federation over alleged corruption and installed a Caretaker Committee to run its affairs in its stead.The entire FKF body led by the former president Nick Mwendwa was sent packing, a move that drew the ire of FIFA, the world’s football governing body, who responded by imposing an indefinite suspension on FKF.As specified by Rachier, the longest serving chairman of the now defunct Kenyan Premier League Limited, the formation of the FKF Caretaker Committee and subsequently the FKF Transition Committee are not provided for under the FIFA constitution. Odera delights in league postponement”What is provided for under the FIFA constitution is a Normalisation Committee, which normally incorporates people from FIFA and the Federation or if the government wants to streamline anything, then they would appoint such people, in which case the representation of the people is not ousted.” Rachier opines.Rachier, who is a conveyance lawyer by profession, dispels the notion that since Kenya is a sovereign state with a popular constitution, FIFA should not intervene in whatever action the government takes as regards football management in the country.”This is association football. What it means is that the bodies (federations) have come together to form an organisation and their rule is that, ‘we don’t want to be interfered with by the government.'””FIFA’s concern is that football is a popular game and ought to be run by stakeholders or people elected by the stakeholders,” he added.Yet, Rachier holds that this does not prevent the government from taking action, including arresting an individual of the federation if he/she commits a crime.##NAJAVA_MECA_6624801##”FIFA has no quarrel with that,” he says, “What FIFA has quarrel with is ceding the secretariat and then taking up the parts that ought to be played by the federation.”Rachier fell short of outrightly saying that Gor Mahia will not feature in the forthcoming football season with the FIFA suspension still intact.The 2022/23 calender season was scheduled to kick off with both the men’s and women’s top tiers on September 10, but the arrangement has been brought forward by two weeks.”There’s no need to play football with the FIFA ban, we will be going nowhere. I would like whatever it takes to get the FIFA ban lifted; in other words try to comply with the FIFA requirements, whether by appointing a normalisation committee or reinstating the previous federation.” He intimated, without giving finer details, that there are concerted efforts to see that the FIFA suspension is removed before a new season begins. Taiwo Atieno: American investors ready to pump Ksh 236 Million into KPLRachier further wants a return of the Kenyan Premier League Limited in the running the top-flight, saying it is the best practice world over.”It doesn’t matter whether I’m the chairman or not. All over the world the running of the top league is outsourced.”
