Football Kenya Federation Chairman aspirant Ken Oliech has warned that the current wrangles between the Kenya Premier League and the Football Kenya Federation will adversely affect the entire football industry in the country.
Oliech the elder brother of former Harambee Stars Captain Dennis Oliech warns that the biggest casualties in the current wars will be the football players who are relying on the sport to earn a living.
Speaking to Ghetto Radio Sports Oliech called on the two factions to sit down and solve their differences amicably.
” In 2006 we had the same scenario and this affected players a lot because having two leagues means that knowing the Countries champion was not easy ,” he added.
‘I remember in that year Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards were playing in the opposite league this even affected the players as they weren’t sure if they were playing in the right league,” he explained.
FKF and KPL fell out on the number of teams to feature in the league whereby the federation wants the number to be increased to 18 while KPL wanted the status quo to remain 16.
The two bodies have announced a parallel leagues and both have released a set of fixtures.
KPL kicked off the season on Wednesday 11th February 2015 with the Super Cup while FKF league is set to begin on the 14th February 2015.
In 2008 FIFA threatened to suspend Kenya from taking part in international Competitions over what it called the country’s failure to respect agreements and recurrent problems in its football association.
The world governing body ordered Kenya to implement a 28-point agreement signed in Cairo by the then KFF chairman Alfred Sambu and representatives of the Kenyan clubs.
With the two bodies maintaining a hard stance on the matter the country is waiting with bated breath on who will blink first.
The biggest stake holder who is the government through the cabinet Secretary Dr. Hassan Wario called on the two bodies to get their house in order but the yesterday’s statement from the Sports Registrar office saying that FKF ceased to exist since it has not registered with his office leaves many questions an answered.
According to the Sports Act which came into effect last year the Government had given all federations a deadline of August to register their organization failure to which they would not run sports in the country.
AUTHOR : PAUL OJENGE / POLOSA