Financial constraints have forced Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to call off the Harambee Starlets camp ahead of their 2020 Olympics two-legged qualifier match against Zambia between November 8-14.
FKF president Nick Mwendwa announced the decision on Tuesday stating that their proposal to hold camp had been ignored by the national government.
“We diligently communicated to the Sports Ministry and the Sports Fund to come in and fund the national teams. We have, however, not received any response from the Ministry, which is frustrating,” said Mwendwa.
“We are calling out on the Ministry to come out with reasons why we cannot get funding from the Sports Fund despite having made numerous requests for the same,” he added.
In the event that Harambee Starlets players report to camp, the side will have less than 10 days of training, which is less than three weeks that they had before their last match against Ghana.
Starlets are also scheduled to travel to Tanzania for the forthcoming CECAFA tournament, which will be another hard task with the current situation.
Ducor Sports understands that the lack of funds was due to the lack of operation of the National Sports Fund which is supposed to cater for local sports federation owing to a standoff between the Treasury, Parliament and the Sports Ministry.
This could affect Harambee Star’s preparations for their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Egypt and Togo that are scheduled to be played next month.
National teams have been struggling to honour their assignments owing to a huge cash crunch at the Ministry of Sports.
The national women’s netball team did not receive funding ahead of their 2019 Africa Netball Championship earlier this month and were allegedly ‘held hostage’ in South Africa for failure to clear hotel bills amounting close to Sh1.5m (USD 15,000).
