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Allafrica - The International
friendly between Kenya and Iran scheduled for Azadi Stadium, Tehran on
August 1 has been cancelled.
Kenya Football Federation chairman Mohammed Hatimy said the joint KFF/KPL
Harambee Stars management board has decided not to have the fixture because
it was not falling on the Fifa international friendly matches calendar.
Sport Global Management, a France based Fifa-Uefa licensed international
match organizing company had approached the board for the friendly match in
Iran on August 1.
The fixture looked sealed after the KFF chief executive officer Sam Obingo
signed the contract. The Fifa official website, Fifa.com, even indicated the
match was on for August 1 in Tehran.
Mistake
"Sammy (Obingo) had not looked at the Fifa calendar. It was a mistake. We
want to send a team that we will use in the World Cup qualifiers which means
having all our professionals available and this cannot happen on August 1,"
Hatimy said.
He added: "We have written to the Iranians telling them we cannot play the
match on that date. The Fifa week is August 20 and the board is looking to
play a friendly against maybe a West African country ahead of our next World
Cup qualifier."
Hatimy said the board was also working on another friendly on July 26
against a neighbouring state. The joint KFF/KPL board sat on Monday to
arrive at their resolutions.
Kenya face Namibia in September and Guinea in November in the final round of
matches for Group Two before the next phase of qualifiers.
Group leaders from the 12 groups and the eight best runners up advance to
the final elimination stage of 20 teams divided into five pools of four
teams each.
Interestingly, Harambee Stars played a friendly against Malawi on July 6,
which was a non Fifa international friendly date, and without their European
based professionals. The two former Cecafa rivals battled to a barren draw.
Stalk the scalp
A meeting with Iran would have given Kenya an opportunity to stalk the scalp
of one of Asia's strongest football playing nation while earning an
appearance fee on the side as part of the contract. Iran, at 37, are the
second highest Fifa ranked nation from Asia. Japan are first at 34.
They have played in three World Cups, the last appearance was in Germany
2006 where they went out in the group stages.
The Middle East soccer powerhouse won the Asian Games in 2002 and finished
third in the Asian Cup of 1980, 1988, 1996 and 2004. They won the same
tournament successively in 1968, 1972 and 1976.
Kenya, in contrast, only have five African Cup of Nations appearances to
boast of, not much to speak about after they failed to advance beyond the
group stages in all of them.
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