No Rio for BAK boss Kameta as appeal is thrown out

Boxing Association of Kenya (BAK) boss, John Kameta, will not be travelling to the Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil next month after the Sports Disputes Tribunal threw out his appeal challenging his exclusion from the country’s contingent on Tuesday.

Kameta had appealed against National Olympics Committee-Kenya (Nock) decision to reject his nomination as Boxing’s Team Manager for the 2016 Rio Olympics overturned.

The Tribunal has further instructed the BAK to nominate another person for the post before July 20.

Kameta pledged to respect the tribunal’s ruling but vowed not to relent in his fight to make sure his boxers are treated justly when they travel to Rio. He the turned his guns on Nock officials, Team Kenya Chef-de-Mission, Stephen arap Soi and James Chacha whom he intends to sue.

“I’ve just heard the ruling and in the spirit of conforming to the rule of law I will also uphold their decision but I still stick to my earlier stance that I was not given a fair chance by Noc-k when they decided to reject my nomination,” the Chairman explained.

“We are going to convene a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) to select our nomination for the post of Team Manager but that doesn’t mean we have given up. I am still planning to pursue Soi and Chacha on integrity issues,” he added.

Kameta through his Lawyer Gerry Gitonga made his submissions on July 14 citing bias and the strained relations between BAK and Noc-k in the London 2012 Games as the main issues that contributed to his rejection.

The Tribunal in its ruling criticized the failure by Noc-k to inform Kameta of the consequences of not submitting the 2012 Olympics report but emphasized that the Chairman was liable as he had not handed it in for a period of four years without explanation.

They noted it was only at the panel’s behest that the undated report was presented at the hearing with no copies being forwarded to the Olympics body.

Kameta argued that he had just come into office a few months before the previous Olympic Games and this was his first report to prepare so he needed to be informed on the content, structure and form of the report

The panel rejected this excuse and explained that the two letters sent to Noc-k dated November 14 and August 10, 2015 inquiring on the issue were identical and did not in any way state when he would hand in the report.

The BAK boss had also stated his exclusion from the team was instigated by other reasons like vying against Chef-de-mission Soi in the Noc-k elections of 2013 and concerns he had raised about the management by the committee in the previous Olympics.

The panel also rubbished this claim as the committee had made the decision to bar both the team managers of swimming and boxing from going to the next Olympics on February 2013 and could in no way have predicted who the two associations would nominate.

The Tribunal also disregarded Kameta’s declaration that his exclusion was a sign of prejudice to boxing as Noc-k had clearly stated that the association should nominate another individual to the position on team manager.

A perusal of the report presented before the panel showed that it was crucial to the committee’s analysis of the 2012 games and this was one of the main factors that influenced its decision.