Football crisis, doping in sharp focus as Namwamba takes hot seat
What you need to know:
- The country's sporting sector has been hard hit by lack of corporate sponsorship and poor management in federations for decades.
- The vetting of CS nominees has been going on since Monday ends on Saturday.
Football and athletics enthusiasts will be keen on plans Sports and Youth Affairs Cabinet Secretary nominee Ababu Namwamba has in place for the two ailing sports in the country.
Namwamba is set to appear before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on Friday from 2:30pm for vetting following his appointment to the Sports docket by President William Ruto with the challenges facing the two most popular sports in the country expected to dominate the session.
Namwamba, who also served as Sports CS at the tail end of the coalition government in 2013, is expected to lay bare what he thinks the solutions are to problems facing sports in the country.
The country's sporting sector has been hard hit by lack of corporate sponsorship and poor management in federations for decades.
The vetting of CS nominees has been going on since Monday ends on Saturday.
In football, the elephant in the room which Namwamba is highly likely to be questioned on is the Fifa suspension Kenya has been serving since February after outgoing CS Amina Mohamed disbanded the Football Kenya Federation in November last year.
The Nick Mwendwa-led federation was shown the door and Mohamed appointed a caretaker committee which was in charge of football until May before the CS formed FKF Transition Committee whose term has been extended twice.
Currently, there is a vacuum in the management of football after the term of the Transition committee ended on Sunday.
Kenyan Premier League clubs have stated that they will only participated in a Fifa-sanctioned league.
Veteran football administrator Lordvick Aduda believes Namwamba will have to tread carefully to avoid being thrown in the murky waters of football.
“There is a court ruling which has not been challenged on disbanding NEC and the same was done by the Sports Dispute Tribunal. Namwamba has to be careful since if he re-instates to the NEC, then he risks kicking off his tenure with many litigations,” Aduda said.
In athletics, Namwamba is likely to be confronted with the runaway doping which is threatening to ruin the gains the country has made in the fight against use of banned substances by athletes.
Close to 30 Kenyans athletes have been flagged down for various doping offences this year.
The list keeps growing each day with the Athletes Integrity Unit (AIU), the body formed by World Athletics to combat doping in the sport, has been unleashing names every week.
Other sports like rugby, volleyball, cricket, hockey, swimming are all in turmoil owing to either poor management or lack or sponsorship.
