By David Gold
October 3 – The Council for East and Central African Football Associations (CECAFA) secretary general Nicholas Musonye has hit out at Kenyan Football Federation (FKF) chairman Sam Nyamweya for boycotting this year’s regional tournament.
The CECAFA competition is set to be played in November in Uganda but Kenya are not planning to take part, and Musonye alleged that their actions were designed to create confusion.
“We have held two successful tournaments in Tanzania without any noise, football is not played in a disorganised manner and there must be order and discipline,” he said.
“Any elements of sabotage, incitement and indiscipline in CECAFA will not be tolerated, those who want to do so have no room as long as I’m in charge.”
Kenya will not participate as new coach Henri Michel wants his side to play an Africa Nations Championships qualifier against Burundi instead.
“In my opinion, the CECAFA Cup is not an important competition and I’m not taking it into consideration at the moment,” said former France coach Michel.
“I prefer to have my players prepare for the game against Burundi rather than this competition where you have one game every 48 hours which is not compatible with the job you have to do to prepare an international game like the one before us.”
Nyamweya (pictured above) had protested against the original decision made by CECAFA to give the right to host the tournament to Uganda instead of Kenya, and attempted to draw the Confederation of African Football (CAF) into the row.
Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia are among those who may join the eight countries already confirmed to be taking part in the tournament so far.
They include Rwanda, Tanzania and Djibouti.
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