FKF-KPL talks on size of top tier league hit snag

A meeting between the Kenyan Premier League club and Football Kenya Federation ended acrimoniously on Saturday afternoon with both parties failing to agree on the sticky matter of how many teams should constitute the top tier club competition.

The consultative meeting lasted about three hours and ended shortly after Mathare United chairman Bob Munro stormed out.

Sources indicate Munro had been manhandled by a man from the federation identified only as Steve in an attempt to take possession of a file said to contain crucial documents on the league

FKF President Nick Mwendwa and KPL Chairman Ambrose Rachier separately revealed that no agreement had been reached.

KPL chairman Ambrose Rachier said that they rejected the FKF proposal to add two more teams to the 16-club affair because the federation did not offer any tangible reason for wanting an expanded competition.

“The letter that Fifa wrote seems to be responding to an earlier one sent by FKF. The letter raises nothing new,. It is only a guidance asking us to enter into agreement with the federation about how to run the league. We already have an existing Memorandum of Understanding which is binding.

“We have outlined several reasons which explain our insistence on the 16-team format,” he said.

Mwendwa said that his intention to increase teams was driven by a desire to have more players included in the top flight.

“We have not agreed on anything as yet but we shall keep deliberating until we find a solution to this issue.  KPL have rejected our proposal for an 18-team league so we shall explore other options, but keeping in mind that Fifa has been clear on where they stand with this issue.

“They have produced a different document showing showing that all 16 clubs own the league, while what we have indicates that only four teams are KPL shareholders, so we shall take both documents to the registrar of companies to find out the truth,” he said.

As the conflict rages on, the KPL Governing Council has endorsed a letter sent to Richard Scudamore, head of the World Leagues Forum Steering Group.

In the letter, KPL chairman Ambrose Rachier seeks “urgent solidarity, support and intervention” from the WLF in urging Fifa to reconsider its support of FKF.

The letter indicates that Fifa has been “seriously misinformed and misadvised” by the federation, and raises eight key questions, key among them being that the decision to reduce the league from 24 teams to 16 was brokered by a Fifa-led taskforce in 2005 and was ratified in Cairo by officials of both Fifa and CAF, the Kenyan government and KPL.

Rachier also reminds Fifa that just last year they endorsed the 2015 report by their own independent expert consultant and upheld the decision to retain the 16-team league format.

“The key issue is that FKF is arbitrarily insisting that all previous agreements involving FIFA, CAF, FKF and KPL over the last decade now be ignored and that the KPL relegation/promotion format since 2007 be immediately changed barely a week before the final matches of 2016 season.

Moreover, one of the likely additional club to be promoted belongs to the FKF president,” the letter reads in part.

KPL has thwarted the federation’s intentions of expanding the league, succeeding both times through Fifa’s intervention.

The league body went to court a month ago and obtained an injunction barring the federation from discussing the composition of the league, and FKF complied, only for them to write to Fifa on November 8 seeking clarity on this mater, to which Fifa responded 11 days later asking KPL to comply with the federation.