Kenyan Premier League (KPL) has sent a letter to Confederation of African Football (CAF) disputing Football Kenyan Federation’s (FKF) decision to annul the league.
This comes after FKF president Nick Mwendwa said that Gor Mahia has been awarded this year’s title after suspension of the league last month owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a letter sent to CAF dated May 7, 2020, KPL, the company responsible for managing the top league, faulted the federation’s decision to cancel the season saying the country’s football governing body does not have the mandate to determine the league’s fate.
“As the body legally mandated to manage the Kenyan Premier League on behalf of the Football Kenya Federation, we would like to register our dissatisfaction with the manner in which your member association has treated the stakeholders (clubs) under the pretext of the Covid-19,” KPL said in a statement to CAF and obtained by Ducor Sports.
“What prompted the KPL to write to you are the unusual happenings we read in the media which were corroborated by the pronouncements attributed to Mr Nick Mwendwa purporting to end the league season in Kenya, including declaring the league winner, relegated and promoted teams.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] “We find FKF’s purported decision to cancel all the season to be out of step with your circular dated April 26 addressed to your member association General Secretaries.” [/perfectpullquote]
KPL also faulted the federation’s inconsistency, saying they amounted to breach of the league’s mandate through interfering with the management of its affairs.
“As the body mandated to run the league on behalf of the FKF, we expected them to bring to our attention your April 26 circular so that we could submit a detailed report to them for onward transmission to CAF as per your request,” it added.
“We expected FKF to furnish the KPL with clear CAF directives that would guide the deliberations of the KPL Clubs’ Governing Council in arriving at decisions commendable to your circular.
“What FKF did instead was through a tweet… to declare the league winner while also relegating and promoting others without stakeholder engagement…and to declare the season has ended…to submit the league winner to CAF.”
The letter further stated: “…KPL strongly believe FKF acted in blatant bad faith in disregard to stakeholder engagement to create a false impression of force majeure in the absence of a CAF deadline for league winner submission and that FKF used Covid-19 pandemic to effect some ulterior motives.
“We find FKF’s behaviour repugnant and out of step with the good intentions of CAF and FIFA to address this unfortunate Covid-19 pandemic for the good of the sport we all love.”
The Kenyan Premier League had nine rounds of matches when FKF declared that Gor Mahia, who were leading the 17-team table on 54 points, will represent the country in the African Champions League.
