FIFA orders Kenya to adopt 18-team premier league

NAIROBI (Reuters) -- FIFA has told Kenya to run an 18-team premier league and ordered the former head of its football federation to account for $113,000 of development funding given to the country last year.

A FIFA delegation visited Nairobi this week to help the east African country restructure its domestic league after world soccer's governing body lifted a five-month suspension of the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) on March 9.

The ban was removed after promises by the government that it would not interfere in the running of the sport.

FIFA said it had also been assured earlier agreements with the KFF, including a 28-point accord signed in Cairo in January, would be respected by the government.

"The Cairo Agreement specified an 18-team premier league format, which is what FIFA expects here," Pascal Torres, a senior FIFA official who led the delegation, said on Saturday.

Torres said FIFA also wanted to find out what happened to $113,000 granted to Kenya to fund football development in 2006.

"We want [former KFF chairman Alfred] Sambu to provide an audit of how the money was used," Torres told Reuters in Nairobi.

The world governing body banned Kenya from international competition in October for failing to respect signed agreements and recurring problems in the national federation.

Kenyan soccer had been in crisis for months before that, with two rival domestic leagues competing at the same time.

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