Opinion: Football Politics: Forget Ndege, He Is in the Past

All over the world, sports administration is guided by political intrigues. The politics in sports, and especially football are bewildering, often not well understood by a cross section of football stakeholders, the very people who are governed by the statutes and laws governing the running of football across jurisdictions. Just recently, Football Kenya Federation (FKF) suspended its former General Secretary/ Chief Executive Officer Harold Ndege. Described as the greatest letdown in the growth of sports in Kenya, Ndege was shown the door following blantant incompetence and mismanagement arising from his office during his stint as the FKF CEO. For those who hardly understand the intrigues of sports politics, Ndege got into a run-in with the FKF President Hussein Mohammed after the President accused his CEO of incompetence and mis mismanagement. For Ndege, his goose is cooked, he is gone, never to return. Ndege survived by having the high court issue stay orders restraining the federation from removing him from office until the courts ruled that the FKF can only appoint an interim CEO until the courts permit for the recruitment of a substantive CEO. With the appointment of acting CEO Dennis Gicheru, the reign of Ndege at the helm of the FKF secretariat is now behind the backs of the FKF leadership. Ndege is gone out of the FKF leadership and has no even the slightest mathematical chance of returning to Kandanda House. Ndege is accused of among others working unilaterary on sensitive federation matters pointing at serious malpractices which could end the federation at financial misapropriation of funds availed to FKF by the global football gorvening body FIFA. Ndege is said to have sourced for the contractor in the FKF Technical Center in Machakos and relayed information to FIFA about the tendering without the approval of top FKF leadership. The current FKF has been undertaking due dilligence in its operations inviting bidders for competitive applications in all its tenders and contracting, however, the former CEO acted in absolute disregard of due Hussein accused the former CEO Ndege of incompetence but Ndege rejected the charges and moved to court obtaining stay orders aganist his removal. The first cluster of allegations targets authority and communication. Hussein, in his letter to Ndege, claimimed that the CEO failed to notify him of a parliamentary summons dated October 28, 2025. The president said he learned of it by chance weeks later. The letter alleged the CEO prepared submissions and engaged Parliament without approval, branding the conduct a governance failure. Further, the president alleged unauthorized official trips and exclusive personal use of a federation vehicle despite fuel allowance, inconveniencing operations. He also faults Ndege for weak leadership on security and crowd control after hooliganism marred league matches, World Cup qualifiers, and CHAN fixtures. The letter credited interventions to the president, not the CEO.