Blow as FKF-PL title sponsors withdraw

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has suffered a big blow following the exit of their Premier League title sponsors, an online betting firm, with both parties confirming termination of their deal on Friday.

The Nigerian firm, which also was sponsoring the FKF Division One League, exits in the first season of the five-year deal, worth Sh. 1.2 billion.

Poignantly, the exit comes with only four rounds of matches remaining to the end of the current season, with the coming season set to kick-off on September 26.

Thus, the federation has a huge task ahead of sealing another sponsorship, with the recent rumbles caused by last week’s boycotted Premier League derby not helping much in attracting potential financiers.

However, it is unknown if the exit has anything to do with the Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards issues with the federation, which are yet to be entirely solved although FKF has since paid the Cup monies that were the major cause of the tussle.

The statement, signed by the firms Country Director Ivana Ristic and FKF President Nick Mwendwa, the two entities decided to end their partnership on mutual consent.

“We have reached a mutual agreement to terminate our existing sponsorship contracts for the Premier League and Division One League. FKF appreciates our sponsors support and partnership over the past season. We (the sponsors) still remain committed to participating in the growth of Kenya’s sporting talents particularly at the grassroots levels through solid and long-term partnerships,” added the statement.

“These resources have had a tremendous impact on each of the 18 FKFPL and 32 Division One clubs from Zone A and Zone B which received partial support for their budgets through this sponsorship,” said the statement.

According to FKF, each Premier League clubs was supposed to receive Sh. 8 million per season, for the five years that had been agreed in the contract.

The Division One League had attracted Sh. 100 million over the five years, and aech of the 32 clubs in the league were to get half a million annual grants.

The federation will be under pressure to get another title sponsor, having taken over the running of the Premier League from Kenyan Premier League Limited a season ago promising more money to the clubs.

By the time FKF took over, the sponsorship had been secured provisionally, while the KPL Limited had no sponsor as another online betting firm had pulled out.