FKF, KPL in make-or-break negotiations
A make-or-break joint executive meeting will be convened on Monday by Football Kenya Federation to come up with modalities of running the 2015 Kenya Premier League that is expected to kick off in the second week of February.
The meeting that will be held in Nairobi is expected to thrash out a number of thorny issues including the number of teams which will participate in the top tier competition.
The federation and KPL have in the last two months been entangled in a bitter war of words over the proposal to expand the league as well as broadcast rights issues with the former reported to have signed a multimillion shillings deal with Italian based firm.
KPL on the other hand still has a broadcast rights agreement with South African based pay television giants SuperSport.
MARATHON MEETING
However, according to a source who attended last week’s marathon meeting between the two parties and overseen by a Fifa delegation, FKF seems to have had its way and Monday’s meeting will merely ratify the adoption of an 18- team league.
“We will have an 18-team league. Initially KPL opposed this proposal but they could not stand their ground as they were a divided house when they tabled their case to the Fifa team,” the source told Nairobi News.
The meeting will also discuss the working relations between the two bodies and how to ensure that the league is smoothly run.
Nairobi News has further learnt that FKF intends to let KPL continue running the league on a delegated mandate.
“We don’t want to take the running of the league from them (KPL). They will continue running it, but must recognize the fact that the league belongs to the federation which is the sole entity recognized by Fifa,” he explained.