AfricaPress-Kenya: Once again, Kenyans will be waiting with bated breath for today’s decision of Fifa’s Disciplinary Committee on the fate of Kenya after Football Kenya Federation (FKF) defaulted to pay former coach Adel Amrouche Sh109 million.
The compensation case will be resubmitted for evaluation in Switzerland today. But it is not yet clear if the federation made payment of any outstanding amounts, by April 30 2020 as directed by the Disciplinary Committee last month.
FKF had been given until April 30 after the expiry of a 30-day extension to provide the secretariat to the Fifa Disciplinary Committee with its position, including proof of payment of any outstanding amounts or face sanctions.
The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) on September 19 last year directed FKF to pay Amrouche the amount as compensation for wrongful dismisal in 2014 only to be reinstated on February 5, 2016 but subsequently sidelined. [Rodgers Eshitemi]
A possible disciplinary measure against FKF is throwing Harambee Stars out of the 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifiers, the same manner Zimbabwe were ejected from the qualification process of the same competition in 2018 for failing to pay Brazilian coach Jose Claudinei Georgini ‘Valinhos’ his dues. .
FKF president Nick Mwendwa is on record as saying he was ready for Fifa’s verdict after the government declined to commit itself.
Contacted yesterday, Sports CS Amb. Amina Mohamed said: “The Ministry has advised FKF to pursue other alternatives in settling the matter including negotiating for staggered payments with Amrouche.”
In a terse warning after granting the Federation the final extension, the Disciplinary Committee said: “In this regard, we take due note from the content of the abovementioned correspondence that the Football Kenya Federation allegedly did not pay the amounts due to the coach Adel Amrouche within the granted deadline and that the latter therefore requests that further disciplinary sanctions be imposed on the Football Kenya Federation.
“In this sense, we kindly inform the parties that, in accordance with point 4. of the decision passed by the Chairman of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee on 23 March 2020, the case will be resubmitted to a member of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee on 18 May 2020 for evaluation in order to decide on harsher sanctions to be imposed on the Football Kenya Federation, which may lead, amongst others, to possible expulsion from Fifa competitions.”
Harambee Stars are in Group E of the Qatar qualifiers alongside Mali, Uganda and Rwanda.
