A law is only as good as its enforcement. A governance framework is only as strong as its weakest loophole. By both measures, the Sports Act of 2013 has been a quiet catastrophe, progressive in ambition, toothless in practice, and so thoroughly gamed by federation officials that it has become less a governance instrument than a playground for lawyers.
12 is a long time. Long enough for every chairman and faction leader in Kenyan sport to learn exactly where the ambiguities sit, which clauses bend under legal pressure, and how to use a High Court to freeze an AGM, nullify an election, or stay in office past the point where any honest reading of a constitution would require them to leave.
The loopholes are not accidental anymore. They are institutional knowledge, studied, tested, and passed down.
The intent behind the 2013 Act was correct. The architecture was well-meaning. But good intentions without enforcement produce institutions that can observe dysfunction without stopping it, and the past decade has been a masterclass in exactly that.
The problems are structural. The Act's registration requirements were meant to bring federations into line, but transition timelines were never enforced. The Kenya Motor Sports Federation ignored its compliance obligations for over a decade, continuing to run motorsport in Kenya, including the WRC Safari Rally, as though the law did not apply.
When the reckoning came, it arrived not through proactive enforcement by the Sports Registrar or Sports Kenya, but through a rival body filing a tribunal petition. That is not governance. That is governance by attrition.
Athletics Kenya went eight years without elections after members weaponised the courts to challenge a constitutional review. The Act required elections. Nobody in authority made it happen. The High Court eventually forced the issue.
Meanwhile, warring factions across football, volleyball, swimming, cricket, and badminton have mastered the same tactic, running to the High Court to freeze Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) proceedings whenever a ruling looked unfavourable, paralysing governance while litigation drags on.
Parliament now has a chance to fix this. The Sports Bill 2026 proposes a National Sports Regulatory Authority, a National Sports Development Fund, defined term limits for federation officials, and a ban on serving in multiple conflicting roles. These are the right conversations, long overdue.
But a Bill is not a law, and a law is not enforcement. Kenya has been here before.
Four things must survive from proposal to statute. First, compliance must carry automatic consequences. A federation that fails to file audited accounts loses its registration immediately, with no ministerial extensions and no court stay preserving the status quo for years. Automatic, and reversible only upon full compliance.
Second, the primacy of SDT must be reinforced. Officials who bypass the tribunal to file parallel High Court cases as a delay tactic must face punitive cost consequences. The tribunal was built for exactly these disputes.
Third, term limits must be written into the statute itself, not into the federal Constitution. As long as they sit in federation documents, officials will draft around them or ignore them. A national standard that overrides all federation constitutions is the only credible fix.
Fourth, the new Regulatory Authority must have genuine independence, be funded separately, be staffed without political debts, and be empowered to conduct unannounced audits rather than wait passively for complaints to arrive.
Even the best law cannot fix culture. Federation seats are treated as assets to be captured and defended, not for the salary, but for what the position delivers: government funding access, control over athlete selection, international travel, and the intangible weight of mattering in a room. Officials will litigate to protect all of that.
The new law can raise the cost of that behaviour. But the real shift requires leaders who understand that the jersey belongs to the athlete, not to whoever controls the dressing room. Pass the Bill. Fund the Authority. Enforce the law. And let the sport begin.
