Push and pull as feisty FA president Mwendwa rattles Sports Ministry

 

FKF President Nick Mwendwa when he addressed the media in Nairobi yesterday. [Stafford Ondego]

The country was yesterday treated to astonishing and brutal arm-twisting pitting a career-diplomat against a belligerent FKF president who grew up in unforgiving Kariobangi slum in Nairobi.

It started with a fuming and an impenitent FKF President Nick Mwendwa launching an extra-ordinary tirade against Sports Principal Secretary Ambassador Kirimi Kaberia, blaming him for blocking funding of national teams as provided for by an Act of Parliament.

In a response bereft of diplomatic padding later in the afternoon, Sports PS went for the jugular, calling Mwendwa “an ungrateful person.”

And by 5 pm, the fiery Mwendwa, FKF Vice-President Doris Petra and FKF CEO with a select group of journalists in tow, scaled Kencom House to present his case.  

However, Sports CS Amb. Amina Mohamed was not in the office as she had gone to Kenyatta University for the official launch of Culture Week festival while Mr. Kaberia was said to be out of the country.

In the end, after Mwendwa went live on KTN News’ sports show Zilizala Viwanjani on the corridors of Kencom House, Administrative Secretary in the ministry Mr. Kassim Farah took in the FKF boss.

Earlier at Safari Park, Mwendwa had stopped short of calling for PS Kaberia’s resignation. He ranted: “We are calling him out today for frustrating the efforts of, not only national football teams but other disciplines too. It is not for me to ask him to resign, but if that is the right thing to do, well… All we want is that the Sports Fund be administered in a proper way.

 “We want to know from the PS, what’s his problem with football; he never writes back to us, he never talks to us but he’s decided not to fund the girls and maybe not to fund the boys as well because we don’t know.”

As if the career-ending tackle was not enough, Mwendwa shot: “We hear claims, but he’s never written to us to tell us what’s wrong with our accountability.”

In a no-holds-barred press briefing at Safari Park yesterday, where he ranted at journalists and announced FKF had been forced to call off national women’s football team training ahead of an Olympics qualifier for lack of funds, Mwendwa said: “We have done everything required of us; including accounting for the Sh244 million the government gave Harambee Stars for the Africa Cup of Nations. Every receipt, every payment to the players, everything is in this file here.

“Yet even with all that including the budgets submitted in accordance with funding guidelines, we have received no response from the ministry. We have sent four reminders, and nothing has come from the Sports ministry.”

But Ambassador Kaberia dismissed Mwendwa, almost saying that he is being economical with the truth.

“I think he is just an ungrateful person. FKF has received so much money from the ministry last year and this year. So much more than all the other federations combined,” PS Kaberia said.

“If I show you the documents you will be surprised. We gave them Sh244 million for the Cup of Nations, and this money was to cover their stay in Egypt until the finals.”

The PS says that despite the national team coming back after getting knocked out in the first round, Mwendwa’s office has never accounted for their expenditure. “Yet they want more money,” he scoffed. “That is where the conflict is.”

Mr. Kaberia was not done. He said that Mwendwa’s office is not only refusing to account for government money alone, but funds from other sources too.

 “And it is not just government money that they are refusing to account for. We have found out that the federation receives a substantial amount of money from Fifa for funding the national team assignments, yet they still come asking for money for the same purpose.

Kaberia added: “FKF must account for all the money they have received from the government and practice full disclosure by saying how much money they receive from external sources and sponsors before they can ask for more money.”