IDAC decision too harsh, say clubs

By Gilbert Wandera

Three clubs have protested against decisions made by the Independent Disciplinary and Appeals Committee (IDAC) against them.

Gor Mahia, AFC Leopards and Thika United have all termed the decisions as "too harsh" and meant to destroy them.

Gor and Leopards have been ordered to play their next home matches behind closed doors following incidences of crowd trouble, while Thika United lost an appeal to have their February 20 league match against Red Berets replayed after it was rained off.

Instead Idac announced that the match has been awarded to Berets on a 2-0 three points basis after Thika failed to turn up for the replay the next day as required by rules.

Gor coach Gideon Ochieng’ said Idac should have considered that the club is a community side that depends on their supporters to sustain their activities.

"If you ban our fans to come to the stadium it means no revenue for the club and this is punitive," he said.

Ochieng’ also took issue with Idac for failing to take action against referee James Kagera, who officiated their match against Mathare United last week that led to crowd trouble when the whistler denied Gor a goal.

There have been other complaints against Kagera by other clubs, but it saddens us that Idac does not see it fit to punish him," said Ochieng’.

He also asked Idac to educate fans on acceptable behavior instead of waiting for them to make mistakes and punish their clubs afterwards.

Leopards secretary, Robert Asembo, said the verdict is too harsh and unfair since it has not been proved that the club’s fans were involved in the incident of detaining a referee during their match against KCB.

No investigations

"We take exception to the ruling considering that no investigations were carried out to ascertain whether this were our fans or people hired by our opponents to spoil for us," he pointed out.

Thika United vice-chairman Gerald Chege called on Football Kenya Limited to form a higher appeals body to give aggrieved clubs an avenue to seek redress against Idac’s decision, which they feel infringe on their rights.

He termed the decision as a shock to his club and claimed that both teams had agreed to replay the match after two weeks when it was initially rained off.

The match commissioner agreed that we could replay in a fortnight but Idac ignored this.

It is a big shock for us and we take exception to the fact that they used a bad rule to award Berets boardroom points," he charged.

He added: "Given that the decision is binding, we ask Football Kenya to form a higher appeals body as had been agreed on last year so that we can contest such decisions."

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