FKF's Otieno powerless in dealing with match-fixing, wants government help

Football Kenya Federation CEO Barry Otieno has explained the need to involve the government in taming the match-fixing scourge in the country.

Otieno said the federation can only deal with people under their jurisdiction but are powerless in punishing the people who do not fall under their provisions of power.

“At the moment, there are no regulations and a legal framework that can assist the federation to fight match-fixing," Otieno said according to The Standard Sports.

"If we arrest someone today on suspicion of match manipulation, there are no laws that will allow us to take him to court.

“FKF can only discipline its members on the cases of match-fixing, but not non-members. That’s where the challenge is and we need the government to come up with a regulatory framework to try and prosecute them outside football. We have no powers and resources to arrest and prosecute the suspects.

“We have engaged our betting partners to try and allocate money that will go towards sensitising, detecting, informing and educating different stakeholders on manipulation.

“There’s also a need to broadcast these matches. Our commercial deal with StarTimes still stands but we are pursuing our partnership with Genius Sports to see whether matches can be recorded for the sole purpose to try and identify cases of match manipulation and fair competition.”

On Saturday, the FKF and Premier League clubs held a sensitisation and consultation forum that was aimed at finding ways to fight the menace. An integrity department was consequently formed and it will be headed by the former Nairobi Stima head coach Michael Kamura.

“As you are aware, match-fixing is a global menace, but FKF in partnership with Fifa and Caf have proactively decided to hold this workshop to sensitise the clubs’ chairmen,” added Otieno.

“These workshops are not only meant to inform, educate, prevent and detect manipulation of matches but also to develop a legal policy document which can be presented to parliament to ensure there is a legal framework that can help us mitigate and address this issue by prosecuting those involved in it."

The steps taken by the FKF and the clubs was lauded by Tusker chairman Daniel Aduda, who was among the stakeholders at the sensitisation meeting.

"The training has come at the right time given that this menace has been with us both locally and globally for a long time. But it has to be a continuous conversation because this is a problem that’s not going away today,” the Tusker official said.

“Once we are done with this training, the onus will now be on the clubs’ management also to trickle down the awareness and continue with the sensitisation of players on the consequences that may befall them as individuals and the negative publicity that comes with it.

“The training still in its infancy stages and they are only rolling it out now. So, let’s wait for the implementation part of it and see.”

The Premier League and the lower leagues are ongoing and are about to reach the halfway mark.