NOCK BACKTRACKS: Olympic body calls meeting to pass law

From Left-Suspended Chairman NOCK Kipchoge Keino, NOCK Legal officer Sharad Rao and David Mereka of Mereka advocates during NOCK meeting at Hotel Panari on Tuesday, Feb 28, 2017. [PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD]

Fearing a ban, National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) has called another stakeholders meeting on March 28 to try to pass a new constitution.

In a surprising about-turn, the Nock executive will try and convince its affiliates to enact the document.

The move is viewed as a last-ditch effort to avoid any sanctions from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which meets on Thursday to discuss Kenya’s situation.

IOC’s meeting comes after members of the Nock ganged up to defeat a new constitution that had been agreed between itself and local affiliates.

The move immediately drew the wrath of IOC who announced last week that they are suspending funding to Nock and will take further action against Kenya at its executive meeting on March 16 and 17.

In announcing freeze on funding, IOC said they are extremely disappointed by the failure to pass a new constitution.

“The IOC is extremely disappointed by the outcome of the NOC extraordinary General Assembly which did not address governance issues in the appropriate way.

“This goes against the tripartite agreement (IOC-NOC-Government authorities) reached in September 2016 in Lausanne and the roadmap and discussions with the NOC over the last few months.

“The IOC is now putting on hold all payments of subsidies to the NOC of Kenya until a decision of the IOC Executive Board is taken at its meeting next week’,” said Emmanuelle Moreau from IOC.

Before last week’s meeting aborted, the IOC had made clear that adoption of a new constitution was non-negotiable. The international body also called for the formation of an independent electoral body as well as coming up with a date for elections.

According to Nock chairman Kipchoge Keino, they have invited all their affiliates to meeting and hope to have a way forward after it.

“We are meeting again today and considering that we had 19 federations voting for the document last week, we hope the new statutes can go through today,” said Keino.

The new document strips sitting Nock executives voting rights and this is the reason last week’s meeting aborted.

To show their seriousness about having the agenda items dispensed with during last week’s meeting, the IOC together with the National Olympic Committees of Africa (Anoca) sent officials to last week’s meeting.

According to a road-map issued by IOC, Nock elections are supposed to be held at the end of this month under a new constitution.

The decision to hold elections early was arrived at following a meeting between Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario, IOC and Nock officials last September.

This came after Wario disbanded Nock following shambolic treatment of Team Kenya during the Rio Olympic games.

Nock officials went to court challenging the decision to disband the association and were reinstated. Several Nock officials are currently in court after being charged on various offences.