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Ababu Namwamba to meet club bosses in bid to end Fifa ban

By Cecil Odongo November 1st, 2022 2 min read

Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba will on Thursday, November 2, 2022, meet representatives of the various Kenyan Premier League clubs.

The meeting, sources have told Nairobi News,  will discuss the state of the game in the wake of a Fifa ban on Kenyan football.

The club chairmen are expected to deliberate with the Sports CS on among other, their position on the process of resumption of football and what needs to be done for the suspension to be lifted.

The delayed 2022/2023 Kenyan Premier League season’s kick-off is also set to be top of the agenda.

“Communication has reached the 18 clubs. I was instructed to send an email to all the clubs by our chairman Ambrose Rachier,” said Oguda.

Nairobi News has learnt the meeting will only involve club chairmen. Embattled Football Kenya Federation (FKF) officials including embattled president Nick Mwendwa have not been invited.

The meeting comes a few days before Fifa moves its secretariat to Doha, Qatar ahead of the 2022 Fifa World Cup kick-off on November 20, 2022.

Fifa is expected to focus on the global sporting showpiece from November 8 and Kenya has until then to convince the world football governing body to lift the suspension or wait until after the tournament on December 20, 2022.

After taking over the Ministry of Sports from Amina Mohamed, Namwamba called Fifa over the Kenyan suspension but the extent of the engagement has not been made public to football stakeholders.

Kakamega Homeboyz Chairman Cleophas Shimanyula confirmed he will attend the meeting and advice Namwamba on how the game should be moved forward.

“I was very vocal when the game was being mismanaged by selfish individuals who believed they were small gods and couldn’t tolerate divergent opinions. I will be in Nairobi to attend the meeting with the CS and give my proposal on the way foward. Those who have mismanaged the game should not be anywhere in leadership if we are to better our football,” said Shimanyula.

Nzoia Sugar chairman Evans Kadenge also confirmed he will be in attendance.

He said: “The FIFA suspension has negatively affected football and those who depend on it. We should not only look at lifting it but taking football back to where it was by attracting sponsorship and improving on all other areas,” said Kadenge.

Kenya was suspended from international football by Fifa back in February of 2022.

This is months after then Sports CS Amina Mohamed disbanded the federation after a government audit found massive misappropriation of funds.

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