Kenya has gained immense traction in curing the ills that have bedeviled local football, Principal Secretary of State Department for Sports Joe Okudo has said.
In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, PS Okudo showered Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed with praise, saying that her noble initiative had set the country's football on course for a full recovery.
“I am very satisfied we are on the tail end of the exercise that will culminate into an election of new FKF officials,” Okudo said.
Okudo echoed Amina's sentiments that the government would unleash the magic wand that cleansed Cricket Kenya in a determined bid to exorcise the ghosts that have haunted the country's football for some time now.
“We recently did the same exercise with cricket and we now have officials who are acceptable to the International Cricket Council,” Okudo said.
Amina made similar remarks after receiving the Cricket Normalization Committee report at Moi, Kasarani a fortnight ago.
She pointed out that Kenya has internal mechanisms of resolving the crisis that has rocked the local football scene and brought most activities to a halt.
“We'll employ the model we used in addressing the mess in cricket to resolve the issues facing football. We want to adopt an internal approach and complete this process before engaging with Fifa,” Amina is on record as saying.
Last year, Okudo said the Directorate of Criminal Investigations had been given a free hand by the world football governing body, Fifa, to scrutinise the activities of the expelled Football Kenya Federation.
While fielding questions from a parliamentary committee, Okudo termed the move to summon former FKF president Nick Mwendwa as timely, further reiterating the government's commitment to bring sanity into local football.
“We have been engaging Fifa to allow us to move in and help have proper structures at the FKF. Now that Fifa has allowed us, we will ensure proper management of football in this country,” Okudo told PAC.
Discussions about the election of new FKF officials have been rampant in the wake of a controversial decision by delegates drawn from FKF branches across the country, who unanimously agreed to elect an interim office after revoking the mandate of the National Executive Committee.
During a Special General Meeting held at Sportsview Hotel in Nairobi on March 26, the delegates said that NEC members are incapable of executing their mandate following Amina's decision to disband the embattled federation on November 12.
“What we want is to ensure things continue to run even as the government works on the way forward,” said Murang'a branch chairman Robert Macharia.
The delegates pegged their action on Articles 24(o) and 37(k) of the FKF Constitution 2017.
Article 24 (0) stipulates that the FKF General Assembly reserves the authority to revoke the mandate of one or a number of members of a body of FKF.
Article 37 (k), provides that if more than 50 percent of the positions of NEC become vacant, the General Secretary shall convene an SGM within two months in order to elect the replacements for the remaining term of mandate.