By Mark Baber
March 11 – Although FIFA have reportedly ordered the Kenyan Football Federation (FKF) to withdraw their court case against the Kenyan Premier League (KPL), at the time of writing Bob Munro, the founder of two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominated Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) and his colleagues on the board of the KPL still face a possible 6 months in jail, if FKF President Sam Nyamweya does not relent.
The MYSA was founded in 1987 by Canadian Bob Munro, at the time an advisor for the United Nations in Nairobi working on environmental policy, water resources management and sustainable development. Mathare is a collection of slums, amongst the poorest in Africa, on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi and home to more than 500,000 people. Children led Munro to a football field that was covered with trash – cleaning up that field to make it fit to play was the first step for MYSA.
Since that day, with Munro as head of the Board of Trustees, MYSA has grown to be the greatest youth association of Africa, with over 25,000 players on 1,800 teams in 140 youth leagues – using sport, combined with community outreach and development activities, to give young people the skills and confidence to aim higher, achieve more and improve their lives. MYSA is run by and for the young people who take part in its activities.
Mathare United FC (MUFC) was founded in 1994 to help youth and their families escape poverty in the Mathare slums; with all coaches and players from the MYSA. The club is now a member of the Kenyan Premier League and has provided a route for young players to sporting and academic achievement, with players from the slums now playing for clubs abroad and for the Kenyan national team. No wonder that Sir Bobby Charlton described the club as “the most remarkable club in the world.”
For its work the MYSA has won numerous honours including:
· 1992: UNEP Global 500 Award for environmental innovation/achievement (Rio de Janeiro)
· 1999: Global Help for Self-Help Prize by the Stromme Foundation (Oslo)
· 1999: MYSA/Brumunddal project cited as a model for the European Year Against Racism (Strasbourg)
· 2000: First Project of the World Sports Academy/Laureus Sport for Good Foundation (Monaco)
· 2001: First CAF African Youth Development Award (Johannesburg)
· 2002: Named CECAFA Model Club for East and Central Africa (Kigale)
· 2002: Founding Member StreetFootballWorld network
· 2003: Prince Claus Award for Cultural Achievement (Amsterdam)
· 2003: Nobel Peace Prize nomination (Oslo)
· 2004: Laureus Sport for Good Award (Lisbon)
· 2004: Nobel Peace Prize re-nomination (Oslo)
· 2004: International Fair Play Prize (Athens)
· 2008: Score4Africa Award for best and most innovative environmentally sustainable project (London)2009: Norway Cup U13 boys Gold
· 2010: FIFA Football For Hope Centre opened at MYSA Headquaters
· 2011: Beyond Sport Award winners – Leadership in Sport award.
Now, head of the Kenyan Football Federation, Sam Nyamweya is attempting to have Munro and his fellow directors of the KPL committed to prison for 6 months for failing to obey a court injunction, taken out on the day before the KPL season was due to kick off, aimed at destroying the KPL after his efforts to have the league expanded to 18 teams (motivated according to the recent report of a FIFA task force looking into the matter by his desire to see Shabana – a team from his local area, of which he is patron – promoted to the top tier) were thwarted.
According to our sources, thanks to behind the scenes intervention from FIFA, a long and turbulent meeting of the FKF on Monday decided that their court case and injunction should be withdrawn, that KPL should resume running the Kenyan Premier League, that KPL will have 16 teams as recommended by FIFA, that the FKF will still continue with their FKF PL of 18 teams and that the fate of Shabana will depend on the FIFA Ethics Committee ruling
The FIFA Ethics Committee has yet to come to a decision over the question of Shabana which was awarded 14 additional “boardroom” points in the last two months of the season (four of the five cases of which should have been time-barred under the FKF’s own rules) and which apparently got away with fielding suspended players in their last three matches.
However, following Monday’s meeting Nyamweya told local media that “We have not withdrawn the case since we have not yet resolved the matter outside the court. Consultations are ongoing.”
So, with FIFA yet to make an explicit public statement demanding the withdrawal of the case (the taking out of which breaks both FIFA and FKF rules) and with no confirmation of the case having been withdrawn, as matters stand the future of Kenyan football, and the freedom of one of the founder of one of the most inspirational projects in world football, is due to be ruled upon by Lady Justice Roselyn Aburili at Nairobi’s Milimani High Court on Friday.
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