World football governing body FIFA on Wednesday rejected Sports Disputes Tribunal’s request for them to form a Normalisation Committee to oversee Football Kenya Federation (FKF) operations.
The Sports Tribunal (SDT) had called for an end to the FKF National Executive Committee term of office on March 17, whereby it also cancelled the FA elections.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the current FKF Executive Committee members, including its president office shall remain in office,” FIFA said in a letter, which has been signed off by FIFA’s Chief Member Associations Officer, Veron-Mosengo-Omba.
“The FKF has surprisingly subjected to the SDT by its own initiative while it was not obliged to do so as per its own Statues. This, however, does not entail that the SDT decisions are binding on FIFA when it comes to prerogatives and remit for which the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Laussane, Switzerland has exclusive competence (cf. art. 57 and 58 of FIFA Statutes, 2019 edition).
“Therefore we wish to emphasise that the relevant SDT ruling has no legal effect on FIFA.”
However, FIFA did not order FKF to proceed with the election exercise that the Tribunal halted on March 17.
FKF had petitioned the SDT on February 25 seeking a determination on the electoral process they had embarked on after various candidates voiced their concerns through the Sports Registrar arguing that the process was flawed.
The Sports Tribunal ruled that FKF eligibility criteria, which allows only those who have been part of the body’s system in the past two years to vie, was against Kenyan laws.
The Kenyan FA national Elections were set for March 27 before the SDT put a halt to it.
