FIFA’s Mosengo-Omba pressured to clear the air over WTS Media Group deal

Football Kenya Football (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa and his team at Safari Park hotel during the video conference call on the ruling of a case challenging several aspects of the electoral code of the Football Kenya Federation Electoral board from the Nairobi law courts on March 17, 2020. [Photo - Stafford Ondego, Standard]

Football stakeholders are calling for full disclosure from Football Kenya Federation regarding the Sh125million undelivered Outside Broadcasting van to pave way for a constructive discussion as proposed by Fifa.

On Wednesday, the world football governing body declined the Sports Disputes Tribunal (SDT) request that it forms a Normalisation Committee to manage FKF’s daily activities pending fresh elections.

Fifa also insisted the current FKF National Executive Committee remains in office while calling for a round-table meeting with the FKF, the SDT representative(s), the Minister of Sport and any other relevant stakeholders in order to find a way forward.

The decision, however, has not gone down well with the interested parties that won a petition filed by FKF at the Sports Tribunal.

Immediately the announcement was made on Wednesday the parties led by an aspirant Lordvick Aduda and former AFC Leopards chairman Alex ole Magelo read mischief in the letter, which he said trashed the Constitution of Kenya all its judicial avenues available to sports organisations.

“I have written a letter to Fifa seeking answers to some of these things. We wait for their answers but there can be no round-table without Fifa first clearing air about the OB van, which is a resource for Kenyan clubs as it was sourced using the Fifa Forward Funding,” Magelo said yesterday.

Aduda linked the current impasse to the undelivered Outside Broadcasting van that FKF paid the now insolvent WTS Media Group Limited Sh125million from the Fifa Forward Fund.

Aduda also claimed that Veron Mosengo-Omba, as the Member Associations Head for Africa and the Caribbean, oversaw the technical evaluation and subsequent approval of the van months before the UK-based company collapsed with creditors’ money, FKF being one of them.

Yesterday, Kakamega Homeboyz chairman Cleophas ‘Toto’ Shimanyula said FKF must account to the people of Kenya before any constructive talks can take place.”

“It is only fair that everything is put on the table for all to see what has been happening at the federation,” Shimanyula said.

“The SDT ruled that FKF’s term has ended. The same office spent Sh125million from the Fifa Forward Fund to purchase an OB van, but which has not been delivered. Now we are being told that they continue holding office as if nothing happened,” Shimanyula said.

Fifa Forward Fund is money available to Member Associations to finance strategic long-term goals, implementing tailor-made development projects to provide football infrastructure and competitions as well as to promote and advance women’s football.

In 2016, immediately Nick Mwendwa was elected president, FKF embarked on an ambitious project to buy an OB van for production of football content. The Kenyan FA put together a proposal for an 8-camera OB van with technical specifications to match those demanded by the Confederation of African Football for it to be able to broadcast continental matches and save local clubs the cost of production in Caf assignments. FKF had also hoped to use the van to generate content and extra money to supplement its programmes.

No sooner had FKF paid Sh125million to WTS Media Group Limited for the van than the company based in Leeds, England, was declared insolvent.

When news surfaced that WTS Media Group Limited had gone into administration on April 11 last year, Fifa told Standard Sports in October last year that they were waiting for ‘full report from FKF’s lawyers on the non-delivery of the vans.”

Numerous inquiries have yielded no response from Fifa and Mosengo-Omba. Yesterday, Standard Sports sent the questions again to Mosengo-Omba, who is now Fifa Chief Member Associations Officer, but by the time of going to Press he had not responded to the inquiries.

WTS Media Group Limited’s administrators Martha Thompson and William Matthew Humphries Tait of BDO LLP the Joint Administrators have listed FKF’s Sh125million deposit as ‘unsecured credit’. While the secured creditors stand a better chance of recovering what they are owed, ‘unsecured creditor’ settles for whatever can be salvaged from WTS Media Group if they win a legal suit they have to file in the United Kingdom.

 

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