Football Kenya appeals to Fifa for London qualifiers

By Gilbert Wandera

Football Kenya says they will appeal to world body Fifa over their exclusion from the under-23 men’s Olympic Games qualifier.

The company’s acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Patrick Naggi said they are at a loss as to why Kenya is not in the fixtures released last week yet they had submitted their name.

"We have written to Fifa because there is no justification for our men’s team being left out of the Olympic Games qualifiers yet we had submitted our name on time to be included," he said.

Naggi explained that the deadline was March and they put in the required documents before the deadline.

Asked whether, the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) may have declined to sanction their request because they are not affiliated to the Olympic body, Naggi said he prefers not to speculate.

"It is only Fifa who can tell us exactly what happened because this is their tournament and they are affiliated to the International Olympic Committee (IOC)," said Naggi.

"We could not get a comment from Nock as all their top officials are currently in India for the Commonwealth Games.

However, the Olympic Committee does not recognise FKL because it already has Kenya Football Federation (KFF) as its local football affiliate.

On Monday, we exclusively reported that the national men’s under-23 team has been left out of the draw for the 2012 Olympic games.

The first round preliminaries of the matches kicked off at the weekend.

The second leg will be played in December, while the first round proper kicks off in March next year.

Four African teams will represent the continent during the London Games in 2012.

Most of the players in the current under-20 team, who played Lesotho in an African Youth Championships qualifier last month, would have been included in the qualifiers. Kenyan footballers have never been to the Olympic Games.