Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has been dealt a massive blow after a Mombasa court ruled the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) has jurisdiction to determine sports matters and cases against the federation.
The high court had temporarily barred the tribunal from entertaining any proceedings against the FKF until a petition before it is mentioned and determined.
The petition was filed by FKF Coast National Executive Committee Members Gabriel Mghendi and Lilian Nadundu as the first and second petitioners respectively.
The petitioners were to file their submissions on June 19 with the first interested party (Football Kenya Federation) ordered to file their submissions by June 25.
On Thursday, July 9, judge Mugure Thandi ruled the SDT has the mandate to determine sports cases including those regarding FKF.
Next Match
Initially, the ruling regarded the federation was under stay orders, but from Thursday's ruling, the stay orders have been vacated with the Mombasa case now transferred to Nairobi.
The SDT was forced to postpone the KPL vs FKF ruling regarding the annulment of the Kenyan Premier League (KPL).
The Federation had cancelled the top-tier on April 30, crowning Gor Mahia in the process. However, the league managers were not happy with the move and after trying to engage the federation in vain, they raised the matter with the tribunal in conjunction with Chemelil Sugar.
Submissions were made on Friday, June 12, with chairman John Ohaga setting the end of June as the day for the ruling.
The SDT had twice cancelled the FKF elections citing a failure to meet set standards.
A couple of weeks ago, the incumbent Nick Mwendwa hit at Tribunal Chairman Ohaga stating he should stop interfering with federation business.
"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?" Mwendwa told Goal.
"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."
