Amina yet to clear Stars, Zambia international friendly

National football team Harambee Stars risks missing out on the planned international friendly against Zambia on October 10, as the Ministry of Sports is yet to give the game the nod.

With the COVID-19 regulations barring contact-sports events in the country in force, the match can only take place with a special approval from the Ministry, according to the guidelines given by CS Amina Mohammed last month.

Citizen Digital understands Football Kenya Federation (FKF) sought the permission to stage the match three weeks ago, but has not received any response with only seven days to go.

“We have done all the necessary arrangements and our foreign based players start arriving tomorrow (Sunday), to prepare for match. Zambia’s delegation is set to jet in on Thursday next week. However, that is not enough to have the match without the clearance. We needed it as early as possible to ensure flawless planning,” FKF president Nick Mwendwa said.

According to federation CEO Barry Otieno, they have sent two reminders to the Ministry over the same without any response.

The match is part of Stars’ homework ahead of their home and away 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifiers against Comoros, importantly to gauge the state of the players most of whom have been out of action since March 2020.

Being a FIFA week, FKF risks sanctions in the event the match is not played, and will lose up to Sh. 12,000,000 to Zambia for the botched friendly, according to Mwendwa.

All the costs for the match are being footed by the federation, including testing of players and officials involved in tandem with the COVID-19 regulations.

“We are ready to comply with all the regulations, as we indicated in our request. The Ministry clearly said national teams preparing for international assignments should be given special consideration as far as the COVID-19 restrictions are concerned. It is on this guideline we are planning the match,” observed Mwendwa.

Both CS Amina and PS Joe Okudo could not be reached on phone by the time of publishing this report.