IOC imposes financial sanctions on Kenya Olympic body

Nairobi March 10 (IANS) The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has slapped financial sanctions on its Kenyan affiliate barely 48 hours after its top officials revolted against proposed reforms.

On Tuesday 11 of 13 Kenyan National Olympic Committee (Nock) Executive Committee members voted against the adoption of an IOC-backed new constitution that seeks among other things to limit their power reports Xinhua news agency.

IOC Head of Media Relations and Monitoring Emmanuelle Moreau confirmed on Thursday evening that the international body had cracked the whip against the Nock pending an Executive Board meeting next week where Kenya s fate will be decided.

Moreau said the IOC is extremely disappointed by the outcome of the Nock extraordinary General Assembly which did not address governance issues in the appropriate way.

This goes against the tripartite agreement (IOC-NOC-Government authorities) reached in September 2016 in Lausanne and the roadmap and discussions with the NOC over the last few months he said in a statement.

Moreau said the IOC is now putting on hold all payments of subsidies to the Nock until a decision of the IOC Executive Board is taken at its meeting next week.

Withdrawal of IOC funding is bound to cripple the operations at Nock led by pioneering Olympics Laureate Kipchoge Keino the retired distance running legend who is widely regarded as the father of Kenya s athletics.

Keino who is also an honorary IOC Member and long-serving Nock president led the majority of his Executive to vote against the proposed constitution at an extraordinary stakeholders meeting in Nairobi.

Needing a two-thirds majority to be adopted the draft regulations supported by most affiliate federations prevailed with a vote of 19 to 13 that fell short of the threshold that would have paved the way to new Nock elections by the end of this month as the IOC backed roadmap suggested.

The IOC Board is expected to ban Kenya from the international Olympic family or impose heavy sanctions against individual officials responsible for scuttling the path to reforms that started in earnest last December during its meeting on March 15 and 16.

The result showed we believe in a fair game. It is the wish of Kenyans and the next elections will be held in June under the old constitution the Nock boss said following the meeting.

The IOC had sent Jerome Poive Head of Relations on Institutional Governance and Mohamed Azzoug chief of staff at the Association of National Olympics Committees of Africa (ANOCA) to Nairobi as observers to oversee the voting process on Tuesday.

However they left in a huff following the outcome as the threat of an Olympic ban for Kenya loomed large.

Retired former world marathon record holders and Olympic silver medallists Paul Tergat and Catherine Ndereba broke ranks with the other members of the Nock Executive in voting for the new constitution.

On the other side of the divide that pitted the administrators against affiliate federations keen to push them out of power representatives of the Kenya swimming and Kenya taekwondo federations voted to shoot down the document alongside Keino and Co against the wishes of their colleagues.

--IANS
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