East Africa: Hatimy Rebels, Backs Qatari

22 May 2011

Nairobi — With the Fifa presidential elections set for June 1, Kenya is pulling away from the rest of Africa in its support for the incumbent, Sepp Blatter.

Football Kenya Ltd chairman Mohammed Hatimy has said Blatter’s challenger Qatari Mohamed bin Hammam is the best choice for the position.

“I want to say I can only support whoever is going to bring changes to Kenyan football since that’s what matters to us now and from what was presented during the visits, bin Hamman is our choice since his manifesto is geared towards helping the developing countries such as ours,” said Hatimy in an interview.

“He has assured us that there will be fair distribution of resources for example, I feel it’s unfair for Kenya with a population of more than 34 million people to be given $250,000, same as Saudi Arabia which has slightly over one million people.”

Bin Hamman has promised to address this by doubling this allocation as well as that for the Fifa Goal Project already running in Kenya, to $1 million, up from the current $500,000.

Apart from that, he has pledged to decentralise Fifa and devolve the power to regional confederations through improving resource remittance and giving them the power of decision making.

Hatimy’s position seems to have emanated from the fact that Fifa has lost confidence in him as the man in charge of Kenyan football and had even initial locked him out of the impending football national elections that were last week deferred by two months.

Fifa had in its electoral guidelines for the football polls in Kenya, stated that a person holding a political position or who has a criminal case pending in court, and those holding political positions will be barred from the elections. But after much hue and cry, the article barring politicians from seeking positions has been deleted.

It is the Blatter regime that gave Hatimy backing to form a private company to run Kenyan football against the Kenya government’s wish. As a result, Football Kenya Ltd has been at loggerheads with the government which has been working with the Kenya Football Federation, a parallel body that also claims to be in charge of the sport nationally. Fifa has stated that next month’s football elections in Kenya will bring together the two groups which will later form a new body to run the sport sounding a death knell to Hatimy and FKL.

While it was expected that Kenya, as it has done in the past, will go with the choice of the Confederation of African Football in the Fifa elections, the country is pulling away even from the position taken by the Council for East and Central Africa Football Association (Cecafa).Cecafa president Leodigar Tenga who is also the head of the Tanzania Football Association has been quietly campaign for Blatter and marshalling support from the 10 Cecafa states, but he seems to have failed to win over Hatimy.

Hatimy is not comfortable with Tenga being the overseer of the Kenya football elections and has said he will not recognise the elections if they are not held under the umbrella of FKL. Tenga recently stated the polls will be under a new body.

“It is clear from the foregoings that some people at Fifa headquarters do not want FKL. And so we will work with somebody who can ensure there is continuity in our game here and that is bin Hammam,” said Hatimy.

CAF president Issa Hayatou has sent a plea to the 53 member states to rally behind Blatter.

The Oceania, European and South American confederations have already declared their support for Blatter.

But following recent allegations of corruption, bin Hammam has declared: “It’s time for change,” — although he has also said he does not believe Fifa is corrupt.

Bin Hammam, from Qatar, the host country of the 2022 World Cup, is Blatter’s first challenger since CAF president Issa Hayatou took him on — and lost by 139 votes to 56 — in 2002.

AllAfrica – All the Time