Photo source: goal.com
The KPL Governing Council met on Saturday, January 24th and unanimously confirmed that the Kenyan Premier League will have 16 teams in 2015 and, for later years, that KPL will only consider proposals to reduce the number of teams.
“For the good of our sport and nation”
KPL’s main reason for doing so is to support and improve the performance of Kenyan national teams. For example, adding more KPL teams means even more congested fixtures, more exhaustion and risk of injuries to our best players, lower competitive levels for developing our talented players, less time for our national team training sessions and less time for international friendly build-up matches.
That is why 46 of 48 African countries have top leagues of 16 teams or less. Not coincidentally, the only two countries with larger leagues, Egypt and Nigeria, both failed to qualify for the 2015 AFCON tournament. Of the 16 countries which did qualify for AFCON, eight have top leagues of 16 teams and eight have top leagues of 14 or less teams.
Consequently, to avoid moving backwards rather than forward, in the future KPL will only consider proposals to reduce the number of KPL teams.
Blatant bad faith by FKF
This issue is also no longer negotiable because of the blatant bad faith by FKF in the recent discussions with FIFA and KPL. For example, FKF leaked confidential documents and repeatedly provided inaccurate and biased information to some “FKF-friendly” journalists which so flagrantly misrepresented the discussions that even the FIFA officials complained.
Moreover, on January 20th FIFA sent a letter to FKF along with the FIFA consultant’s final report. In the letter, FIFA reportedly recommended a 16-team league and asked FKF to forward the FIFA letter and report to KPL and other stakeholders.
Instead, FKF ignored and defied FIFA. Over the next few days, FKF continued discussions with KPL without disclosing they had received the FIFA letter and report. Late last week, top FKF officials even denied they had received the FIFA letter and report. Last Friday, FIFA had to intervene and ordered FKF to send the FIFA letter and report to KPL. FKF have still not complied with that FIFA directive.
Due to such blatant bad faith by FKF, KPL will not engage in any more discussions on this matter. As it has done many times over the last decade, KPL will respect and implement the new FIFA directive.