By Mark Baber
March 13 – Kenyan Premier League officials have walked free from court after being cleared of the contempt of court charges brought against them by the Kenyan Football Federation and its President Sam Nyamweya. The ruling comes in spite of a remarkable letter being sent to the FKL by FIFA Deputy Secretary General Markus Kattner in which he explicitly scotched reports that FIFA had requested the withdrawal of the case.
Milimani High Court Lady Justice Roseline Aburili ruled on Friday afternoon that there was no evidence the KPL had been served with the order issued on 20th February barring it from organising football matches prior to that weekend’s matches, meaning the officials including KPL chairman Ambrose Rachier, CEO Jack Oguda, Tusker’s James Musyoki, Mathare United’s Bob Munro, Ulinzi Stars’ Col. Mwinyikai Juma, AFC Leopards’ Allan Kasavuli and Sofapaka’s Elly Kalekwa will not be serving the six months in jail demanded by the FKF.
Apart from finding that there were discrepancies between the accounts of the process server and Nyamweya’s affidavit, the Lady Justice pointed out that it was not acceptable for a court injunction to be served at 5.30 in the evening, the time at which it was claimed to have been served.
Despite this partial victory, the order stopping the KPL from running the league has been extended until Monday when a ruling on the KPL application to have the ban lifted will be made.
The highly unusual case sees the KPL arguing that the FKL is not only banned by its own constitution and FIFA’s statutes from taking football matters to court, but also does not constitute a legal person under Kenyan law, making the injunction against the KPL invalid.
Remarkably, FIFA, rather than defending its own statute preventing football matters being taken to court, sent a fax to the FKF on Wednesday to counter what it described as “misleading media reports” and to “confirm that there has been no correspondence sent from our offices to the FKF requesting the withdrawal of the pending case in the High Court of Kenya.”
FIFA’s Ethics Committee has yet to act in a dispute in which FIFA’s own task force head reported that “the strong wish of the president of FKF to increase the size of the league to 18 teams is very much motivated on promises which have been given to two teams from the National Super league. One team is Shabana FC (from the home area in Kenya of the president of FKF). The delegation got the strong impression that there is no other justification for the increase of the KPL up to 18 teams.”
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