AFC Leopards legend Francis Xavier has insisted Posta Rangers and Wazito FC do not deserve walkovers after Gor Mahia and KCB skipped their Shield Cup matches.
Gor Mahia were to clash against Posta Rangers whereas KCB were to host Wazito in the Round of 16 matches for the domestic cup but the former two decided not to show up citing prevailing coronavirus circumstances and a public gathering ban.
“Nobody should be handed a walkover because it was a government directive that no sporting activities should take place during this period,” Xavier told Goal.
“There was no way teams like Bandari and Gor Mahia could have defied such a directive from the government. Should they have defied it they could be in for dire consequences I believe.”
Xavier added it was good to respect the Ministry of Health directive as a direct response of curbing the spread of Covid-19.
“It is not good, again, to play around with peoples' lives and it was better for those teams to take precautions and when everything returns to normalcy we will get back to playing football,” concluded the former Vihiga United assistant coach.
“Football is not going anywhere it has been here and it will remain to be here. There was no need of risking the lives of players.”
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Chief Executive Officer Barry Otieno, in an earlier interview with Goal, had revealed the cases of the skipped matches will be heard and determined once the coronavirus is contained.
Otieno further cited the Sports Disputes Tribunal's (SDT) move which had ruled the FKF Executive Committee (NEC) was illegally in office as another reason the federation could not sit and make a decision on those pending matches.
“We have not met to discuss the fate of the two matches because when we had planned to meet, Sports Dispute Tribunal stated our NEC members cannot discharge work because their terms of office had expired,” Otieno explained to Goal on Monday.
“We now have to wait for the coronavirus to be contained before we make the ruling, it must wait and there is no short cut.
AFC Leopards and Ulinzi Stars played their matches against Ushuru and Migori Youth FC respectively and progressed to the quarter-finals.
