Crisis in Nock as Soi knocked out

The Kenya Judo Association has cracked the whip and suspended its beleaguered chairman Stephen Arap Soi. Vice chairman Mwangi Mbutu has been elected to lead the association on an interim basis.

The decision by the KJA Council Meeting, held last weekend, now throw’s Soi into a corner as the association also wants him out of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) where he serves as assistant secretary holding the judo ticket.

In a letter addressed to Soi and signed by the association’s secretary general, Shadrack Maluki, the council suspended the former chairman, who is required to defend himself before the next Annual General Meeting which will either ratify or uphold the Council Meeting’s decision on November 24, this year.

The Council Meeting invoked sections 4 (iv) and 6 (v) of the KJA constitution and accused Soi of, among other issues, “general misconduct and mismanagement in the running of the association.”

The letter indicated that the general conduct of Soi, as chairman, was questionable in view of his inability to put in place a physical KJA office as per the Registrar of Society’s requirements.

The letter also brought into light what it termed as Soi’s “unilateral selection of the national teams and officials to the World Judo Championships in Paris, France, East and Central Africa Championships last year.”

Besides the disclosure of the associations’ accounts, assets and finance resources, the council also wanted to know the whereabouts Sh200,000 that was a donation from the National Olympic Committee of Kenya for the national team’s pre-training ahead of the Maputo All Africa Games last year.

Six out of 11 executive committee members voted to suspended Soi, who failed to show up for the meeting at Nyayo stadium.

However, Soi dismissed the meeting as “illegal” saying the venue was changed from the Kenya National Sports Council boardroom owing to the unavailability of the venue.

“The venue was unlawfully changed and the people who are purported to have attended the meeting are not genuine,” claimed Soi, who said he gave the KJA executive committee the mandate to run the association in October last year owing to his engagement with Team Kenya at Nock.

“The meeting didn’t have a specific agenda,” he added.

Soi has been mentioned adversely regarding Kenya’s below-par performances at the London Olympics where he was Team Kenya’s chief executive officer.