Kenya Govt Disbands Under-17 Team

Govt to apologise to FIFA
Ghana's Starlets To Get Another Chance?
Nairobi (Kenya) -- The Kenyan Government has disbanded the national Under-17 soccer team, which eliminated Ghana from the Africa U-17 Championship. This comes just one week before they were scheduled to play Ethiopia in an Africa Youth Cup qualifier.

Sports Minister Najib Balala made the order today on the strength of investigations he said prove that some members of the team are over-age.

He said the Government will lodge a formal apology with the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) over cheating committed by soccer authorities in the country.

Balala said they will write to FIFA advising them to withdraw the country's national teams from all its events until further notice. The move will affect the national team Harambee Stars' participation in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

"We can not allow such an action to pass since we insist on high integrity from all associations," he said.

He said the Government was moving in quickly to avoid any harsh punishment from CAF and FIFA.

"We have decided to take such an action rather than wait for FIFA or CAF to ban us," he said.

Balala revealed that he had personally interviewed two members of the under-17 team, goalkeeper Francis Ochieng and Aggrey Ongoli, who had admitted to being over age.

Balala said the Identity cards for the two showed that one was born in 1981 and the other in 1982 which means that they are at least 20 years or above.

Other than interviewing the two players, Balala said he had also talked to some technical bench members of the team who had admitted that there were some over-age players in the team.

"We will ask CAF to reinstate Ghana back to the competition and also apologise to Ethiopia," he said. Kenya eliminated Ghana last month with the Ghanaian coach bitterly complaining that Kenya had fielded over-age players.

Ethiopia beat Kenya 2-0 three weeks ago in the first round match of the Africa Youth Cup match. They were scheduled to play the second round on February 22 in Nairobi.

Asked what action he will take against Kenya Football Federation (KFF), Balala said stern measures will be taken against any official found responsible.

"You wait and see what my ministry will do next week regarding the KFF," He said.

He said investigations will be carried out right to the Immigration Department and Registrar of Births departments which could have issued falsified documents.

He said he had hoped to work amicably with the KFF but had realised that officials at the federation were not genuine in their desire to develop soccer in the country.

"Now I'm convinced that the many accusations made against them are right since they have lost several sponsors due to mismanagement," he said.

Balala said the Government had a role to ensure that all matters pertaining to soccer runs smoothly and his action does not amount to interference.

"Let anybody challenge me on that. We cannot just sit and watch things go from bad to worse," he said.

National team coach Jacob Mulee who was present said it was unfortunate that such an action had been taken.
Mulee, who also doubles up as the under-17 tactician, said despite the consequences expected, the truth had to be told.

A shocked Kenya Football Federation (KFF) secretary general, Hussein Swaleh, said they will react when they receive the minister's statement.