CECAFA Secretary General Nicholas Musonye addressing the media.
The Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) has suspended Kenyan champions Gor Mahia from all competitions for a period of two years following their unprofessional act of boycotting the medal presentation of the Kagame Cup 2018.
The decision communicated to the media on Saturday in Dar es Salaam by the Secretary General Nicholas Musonye was taken by the CECACA Executive Committee which met on Friday night.
Gor Mahia who finished third after edging JKU of Zanzibar 2-0, blatantly refused to pick their bronze medals on Friday during the medal presentation ceremony led by Tanzania’s Speaker of Parliament Job Yestino Ndugai who was in company of the Sports minister Dr. Charles Mwakyembe.
Musonye said, “We have had a very good run, we saw good matches, very good competition despite organizing this competition during the World Cup time but despite that those who attended and watched our matches were happy that we had a very good competition.
“We have had a series of issues but over and above, 95% of the organization was very good, 95% of the teams behaved very well apart from minor instances here and there which are very normal in football.
“Cecafa believes in discipline and order, you can’t run an organization when there is no discipline and order. When we talk about discipline and order, it must start in your house.
“During yesterday’s (Friday) closing ceremony, we had very serious guests, top government officials including the Speaker of the National Assembly of Tanzania and four ministers who closed our ceremony on Friday.
“As our tradition demands that we have to give medals and other prizes to the winners from number 1 to 3, we lined up the teams as per our tradition to give presentation of the awards as well as guests to award the medals to the teams.
“The team of Kenya, Gor Mahia refused to honour this honourabe ceremony, the Executive Committee met on Friday night and Saturday morning and they have decided to suspend Gor Mahia from Cecafa competitions for two years. Even if they qualify to play in 2019 and 2020, they will not be allowed to play,” he noted.
He further added, “The Executive Committee after going through a series of reports from the Organising Committee and Match Commissioners, Gor Mahia was found to be engaged in a series of indiscipline acts.
“When they arrived, they refused the hotel they were given, secondly they refused to go to the dressing room they were given during their semi-final match against Azam FC and opted to change in front of everyone in the stadium and this was a very clear sign of indiscipline which can’t be tolerated. Boycotting the medal presentation on Friday was the last show of bad manners of Gor Mahia who are supposed to lead by example.”
“And based on the number of decisions from reports of the match officials accusing Gor Mahia coach Dyllan Kerr seen abusing the fourth official, we have called Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to take disciplinary measures against the Gor Mahia coach. The coach of Gor Mahia has been warned and advised not to undermine the leadership of football in this zone.”
“Teams in this zone have held their federations to ransom and this will not be allowed to happen in Cecafa,” added Musonye.
Gor Mahia’s failure to honour the medal presentation means that they have also forfeited their $10,000 prize money for finishing third in the tournament after their conduct.
Azam FC retained the CECAFA Kagame Cup after beating Simba SC 2-1 in the final, taking home the trophy and $30,000 as Simba SC took second place to secure $20,000.
