Kenya's football federation boss could face fraud charges

Football Kenya Federation’s chair Sam Nyamwenya is flirting with a jail term after the Office of the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) recommended his prosecution alongside Secretary General Michael Esakwa and acting Finance Manager Samson Cherop.

Top Kenyan football site soka.co.ke reports that the DCI and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) are looking into a case in which close to $170,000 were used, money that had been set aside for Kenya’s trip to Cape Verde for the 2018 World Cup qualifier in November 2015, in which the Harambee Stars lost 2-1 on aggregate.

The ODPP says the Police and DCI have recommended the trio “be charged with offences of conspiracy to defraud, stealing by agent and fraudulent false accounting”, writes Soka.
The case is now being “independently reviewed and decisions thereon made shortly based on evidence and the law.”

In November, the Kenyan national football team’s travel itinerary was delayed for hours following a spate of occurrences from unpaid allowances to unpaid flight. The travel is said to have only occurred at the intervention of the President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The team endured a lengthy flight to Cape Verde on small chartered flight and only arrived three hours to the kick off of their fixture, which they lost 1-0, a result that bundled them out of the qualifiers altogether.