Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa has not minced his words, accusing the Sports Dispute Tribunal (SDT) chairman John Ohaga of meddling with the affairs of the federation.
Just a day after FKF snubbed a stakeholders meeting convened by SDT, Mwendwa has now called on Ohaga to keep off matters pertaining to the federation accusing him of maligning their efforts to conclude the election exercise on two occasions.
“FKF is an institution that has been here for many years and has its own rules and regulations,” Mwendwa told Goal on Wednesday. “On two occasions, SDT has nullified our elections despite all the efforts we had put in to do what they had asked us to do.
“I have never seen a court inviting people to file cases against one another apart from the SDT, Ohaga’s court has continued to interfere with FKF elections, and I think they have an interest that we don’t know.
“The Tribunal has now been turned into a consultancy firm asking stakeholders to give the way forward, since when did a court ask stakeholders to speak on matters of FKF?
“Ohaga should simply stay away, keep off anything to do with football in the country, I have never seen a judge meddling into football matters the way Ohaga is doing, he is even telling stakeholders he will do away with the FKF constitution, to bring another constitution which is not possible.”
The agitated FKF boss wondered why Ohaga had placed so much effort to arbitrate on football matters whereas he has a case – for a swimming association before him - which he is yet to make a ruling.
“It is unfortunate even with several cases lying in his desk, Ohaga has decided to put much effort on football matters,” Mwendwa continued. “He [Ohaga] has even gone ahead to create a forum where he wants people to discuss FKF elections. Who is he?
‘If he wants to contest for the top seat, let him come clear, we have other associations suffering the same issues but he has decided to ignore them.
“As FKF, we don’t have any faith in the tribunal anymore, we are asking the chairman of the tribunal [Ohaga] to stop interfering with football matters once and for all, and allow us to do the elections. He is not a member of football and cannot host a meeting for stakeholders.”
Mwendwa further said they will not take part in any of his meetings and will wait for the Fifa directive on elections to know the way forward.
“We are not going to take part in any of his meetings and if he wants to take part, let him come and contest [during elections]. He likes meddling into matters football. We cannot allow him to continue attacking football. Fifa is clear, after the Covid-19 pandemic they want us to do elections, they don't want any electronic elections but they want elections done by ballot.
“In 2016, there was no Ohaga and elections were done peacefully, they have nine members in the committee but he chairs all football matters. Why? He should stop and keep off. One time he is a judge another time he wants to arbitrate.
“If he wants to contest let him come and contest. We have a constitution that guides us and it is unfair for him to keep arm twisting issues.”
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