Kenya: Play Or Forefeit

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Muigai Kiguru

16 July 2011

THE Kenya Premier League insist that champions Ulinzi Stars will lose the three points if they fail to show up for their league fixture against Chemelil Sugar at Karuturi this afternoon.

Ulinzi players, all soldiers, are currently in Rio de Janeiro Brazil for the world military games starting this weekend and cannot be in Nairobi to honour their KPL engagement.

However, the KPL yesterday reiterated that the match will not be postponed despite the champions being out of the country on official duties at the order of the Armed Forces whose Commander in Chief is President Mwai Kibaki.

KPL’s Chief Executive Officer Jack Oguda said the decision to go ahead and dock points from the soldiers is informed by a KPL governing council decision stipulating that teams are only allowed to miss league matches when taking part in either international football federation (Fifa), African football Confederation (Caf) or Council of East and Central African Football Associations (Cecafa) sanctioned tournaments of which the Brazilian show is not a part of.”We want to run our league in a professional manner and if Ulinzi do not feature in their match, their opponents will be given an automatic walkover,” said Oguda.

According to the fixtures of the military games, the football tournament runs between July 15-24, which means Ulinzi are likely to miss their July 20 fixture against Sofapaka.”The football jurisdiction, under which the league is run, also stipulates that if a team misses three consecutive matches, then they are bound to lose their Premiership status through relegation,” observed Oguda.”Ulinzi are fully aware of these rules and despite the fact they are representing the country in Brazil, rules are rules and they have to be observed.”

Failure to postpone the two matches by KPL will be a big blow to Ulinzi, who are also the KPL Top 8 tournament champions. They have had a turbulent season in their quest for a fifth national title. They also saw their Cecafa Kagame Castle Cup campaign shot down in the quarter finals by El Merreikh of Sudan.

Meanwhile the inaugural edition of the Super Eight women’s football tournament enters the second weekend tomorrow with over 64 women football teams fighting to see which one of them will represent their constituency in the finals.

The Super 8 women edition is an Extreme Sports pilot project and will soon be spreading out to the rest of the country. It attracted huge crowds of fans last week during its launch in Westlands.

This weekend will see the teams in each constituency playing up to the finals to find the teams which will play the second phase of the tournament where all the eight winners will fight it out for the main prize at the end of the month. Extreme Sports have been organising Super 8 tournaments over the past few years.

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