Ingwe have been asked to avoid shortcuts and fight on the pitch to help end their 23-year drought without league trophy
AFC Leopards have been told to forget about shortcuts and work their way out to win the FKF Premier League title.
Ingwe are facing 23 years since they last won the top-flight title and on Sunday club chairman Dan Shikanda opened a pandora’s box when he said the federation should declare them champions for the 2020-21 season since they were on top of the table with 50 percent of matches played.
The statement has not gone down well with a number of football stakeholders with former Gor Mahia official Sally Bollo telling Shikanda and AFC Leopards to forget about shortcut and plan to win the league out rightly.
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What has been said?
“It’s a pretty sad statement coming from the chairman of Kenya’s oldest football team,” Bolo told Goal. “He has no idea what the difference is between a cancelled and an operating league, demonstrating his lack of understanding of Kenyan football regulations.
“Because they topped the league in one week, it appears that the AFC chairman is afraid and does not want to wait for the June 30 that was declared by Caf, despite the fact that this is not in accordance with the regulations. Instead, he wants the league to return to 50%. Sorry, but there isn’t a shortcut.”
What did Shikanda say?
On asking FKF to crown them champions, the former international faulted the federation for changing the rule of getting a champion for Kenya, insisting the same one that was applied last year to crown Gor Mahia should be applied to determine the winner for the current season.
“I don’t understand why FKF is applying double standards, because at the same stage last season when they crowned Gor Mahia for being on top of the table when the league was cancelled, it is AFC Leopards leading this time around, so why can’t they declare us champions?” Shikanda posed a question to Goal.
“The same rule that was applied last season to get a champion must be applied this season, so I don’t understand where FKF got the recent rule again that a team that will be leading the table by the end of June 30 will now be declared champions, where did that rule come from?
“After 50 percent matches played it is AFC Leopards topping the table, and when they rushed to Twitter to crown Gor Mahia last season they [Gor Mahia] had also played same and were leading the log so FKF should move with speed and give AFC the title, we should always be fair to all teams in the league, and not favour some, rules are rules and must always cut across the board.”
On May 18, the FKF confirmed the team leading the table on June 30, the deadline provided by Caf for submission for representative clubs, will be given the slot to represent Kenya in the 2021-22 Champions League.
Tusker are currently leading the 18-team table with 38 points from 18 matches while KCB are second on 36 points, the same as AFC, while champions Gor Mahia are fourth on 31 points from 17 outings.
