Amenga questions banning of Kenyan trio by CAF

Kenya under-17 head coach Michael Amenga has questioned decision by the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) to ban his three players from the ongoing Cecafa Under-17 tournament, on grounds of age cheating.

The tournament, which is also a qualifier for the 2019 African Under-17 Cup of Nations to be held in Tanzania, has been closely monitored  by CAF with the age cheating vice hitting Kenya among other countries.

An MRI scan by FIFA found showed Lesley Otieno, Maxwell Mulili, and Abdumalik Husein Abdallah were above the required age bracket hence declared ineligible to participate in the tournament.

Speaking to Citizen Digital from Tanzania, Amenga expressed his anger on the decision saying the omission of the three players will affect his team but kept faith of conquering Cecafa.

“Fkf conducted independent scans that showed that all our players were within the required age cut but the report from the FIFA really shocked me. We are currently less, the three players were very good and they would have helped us a lot. For now we have no option but to use the rest of the team, I am optimistic we will do well, Amenga told.

CAF Vice-President of Medical Committee, Yacine Zerguini also sent home three Ugandan players; Kafumbe Joseph, Elvis Ngonde and Oluka George, while host Tanzania had two over-age players. Only Djibouti and Ethiopia were found fully compliant in terms of ages of their players.

However Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has refuted CAF decision insisting that the players sent to Tanzania to represent the country were within the required age bracket as specified by the body.

FKF has written to CAF and the hospital which performed the MRI tests seeking to know why the tests could have differed.

The region games kicked off on Saturday 2018 with Kenya in group B alongside Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Djibouti.

The Junior Stars will kick off their campaign against South Sudan on Tuesday.

Group A of the 10-nation tournament comprises of the hosts Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Sudan.

The winner of the tourney will get a chance to represent the CECAFA region in the continental fiesta.