Kenya’s sports governance: Finding the middle ground

Abstract

Kenya’s 2013 Sports Act is among the statutes that were created just after the promulgation of the country’s 2010 Constitution with the good intent to govern and consequently promote sports in Kenya. However, ever since, the Act has been facing certain hinderances in its application and a good number of these issues can be attributed to the situation of the principle of autonomy in the Act. The implementation of the Act essentially signified the country’s move to intervention in terms of sports and this did not seem to sit too well with some of the major players in the country’s sports sector. Despite its visible effort to allow for some amount of autonomy however, issues regarding autonomy have still arisen and have been responsible for a huge amount of the problems presently facing sports in our country. Also, the laws governing sports are no longer clear and this has resulted in some sort of conflict of laws whereby the parties to the consequent disputes are then tasked with choosing between whether to adhere to the rules of their respective sports organisations or the national laws. This project thus seeks to show that the root of the said problem is in the fact that the present amount of autonomy allowed is not sufficient and that the best solution is primarily a form of qualified autonomy.