Uhuru slams FKF for U20 age cheating scandal

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday slammed Football Kenya Federation (FKF) which was recently accused of fielding over age players which led to Kenya being thrown out of the Under 20 African Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Speaking in State House, Nairobi when signing the Anti-Doping Bill into law, the Head of State expressed his outrage with the scandal that plunged the country’s football

“This kind of issue is simply unacceptable for a federation of its caliber, and let us not sugar-coat it—it is cheating.  It is breaking the rules.  And if the federation does not know the rules, then that is carelessness” he said. 

CAF disqualified the national men’s team from the preliminaries of the 2017 AFCON Under-20 to be held in Zambia.

According to CAF Kenya fielded five players who were born in 1996 during the first leg of the qualifying match against Sudan on April, 3 2016. The governing body cited that the cut off for the birthdate for participating players was 1st January 1997.

The decision means that Kenya will not participate in the preliminaries of the competition and Sudan will proceed to the next stage of the competition. However, the country will be eligible to participate in the qualifying rounds of the 2019 edition of the tourney.

In its defence, the FKF attempted to demostrate its proactive efforts requesting for the updated information from several officials at the governing body.

In its ruling, CAF noted that despite the deficiencies in communication and lack of adequate support from the Match commissioner, it was the responsibilities of its member federations to strictly adhere to CAF statutes and directives. It is on this basis that the Governing body disqualified the team.