FKF in flurry of activities to return game to screens

Football Kenya Federation has invited the Kenyan Premier League Executive Committee to an emergency consultative meeting on Sunday over SuperSport’s decision to terminate its broadcast rights deal with the league.

The federation is also going to meet individual club heads separately on Tuesday.

FKF will be trying options to grant the Kenyan Premier League Limited the right to run, administer and be responsible for the country’s top club football competition as a way of wooing the South African pay television station back to showing Kenyan club matches live.

SuperSport on Friday abruptly terminated their contract with KPL limited citing breach of contract in regards to the company’s legality to run the Kenyan top flight league.

In a press briefing on Saturday, FKF chairman Nick Mwendwa described SuperSport’s deal termination as “dire”.

He said that his office intended to make every effort to ensure that the South African broadcasters re-evaluated their decision.

Mwendwa however added that even after they subordinated the rights of running the league to KPL, all future contracts signed by the company would need the federation’s assent.

“The contract was signed between SuperSport and KPL, but its termination has a significant implication on football in Kenya, and that is where the federation comes in.

“I met SuperSport yesterday and they were clear that they were unhappy because certain provisions of their agreement with KPL were breached. We don’t want to blame anyone. We want the game back on our screens as soon as possible and I intend to get back to SuperSport within four days.

“If it is about the delegation of warranties for running the league then we are willing to do that because we are not disputing the fact that KPL limited has limited mandate to market and commercialise the league.

“As FKF we shall have an executive committee meeting on Monday, then we shall meet KPL committee that afternoon. We would like to see the copy of the contract so that we can know which warranties they ceded to the federation that made SuperSport leave,” he said.

Mwendwa also said that had his office been engaged in good time, the problem would have been nipped in the bud.

“We have had issues since October last year, but most of those issues were determined in court last month.

“We asked for an explanation as to why SuperSport were not televising matches live last month but we received no response. Perhaps if I would have known then, all this could have been avoided,” he said.

Meanwhile, SuperSport banners were in bold display Saturday at Afraha where Nakumatt and Gor Mahia played Sony Sugar and Kakamega Homeboyz respectively in their SportPesa Premier League matches.