PS Kaberia accuses FKF of blackmail

The Sports Permanent Secretary Ambassador Kirimi Kaberia has accused Football Kenya Federation (FKF) of blackmail in the ongoing Harambee Starlets funding dispute.

Kaberia countered claims made by FKF president Nick Mwendwa that he has ‘blatantly refused’ to fund the Starlets by  blocking all channels of communication leading to him.

Mwendwa’s claims came after he had taken the drastic measure of disbanding the Starlets camp, nine days before they are scheduled to play Zambia in an Olympic qualifying match.

And Kaberia faulted Mwendwa for making such a move, adding funding should primarily be the federation’s job and not the Government.

“Whenever I hear about our national teams disbanding their camps I wonder how can certain federation allow that.

“There are so many sports facilities which could have been used by the girls and if it’s a matter of allowance the federation should cater for that – not the Government.

“In Kasarani there is a nice new hotel where the ladies could have camped and the claims sorted later, so to me I wonder how things are done.

“The only thing this federation thinks about is about camping far from Nairobi in big hotels and forgetting that as a ministry we also have other federations who are looking upon us,” Kaberia told Citizen Digital.

The PS added there has been ‘no proper communication’ from FKF, saying the information does not reach the ministry’s desk on time and urged them to do things in a better way.

“I can’t talk much about this issue until I’m back in the country. I’m not the type to ignore calls and certainly can’t recall doing so. Even if I’m busy I always return missed calls.

“Those saying I don’t pick calls nor return emails they are wrong and their mission is just to blackmail me and the ministry at large. They should not doubt our patriotism at all,” Kaberia said.

FKF boss Mwendwa has insisted that if no money is availed to them in the next seven days, their Zambia trip will be cancelled. According to FKF boss, they applied for Sh34m in 2018 which is yet to be disbursed.

In June 2019, the federation applied for Sh38m, before applying for a further Sh18m in August and a similar figure in October for the Malawi, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia matches respectively to no fruition.

Starlets also  are set to participate in the forthcoming CECAFA tournament in Tanzania but Mwendwa says it will be hard task to honour it with the current situation.