Sports Governance in Kenya: The Sports Act 2013 and the Regulatory Framework

Sports governance in Kenya rests on the Sports Act (Cap 223), which establishes Sports Kenya, the Kenya Academy of Sports, the office of the Sports Registrar and the Sports Disputes Tribunal as distinct institutions with separate functions. A federation, club or sponsor that treats Sports Kenya as the single body to deal with for everything will often address the wrong institution, so the first task is to understand who does what.

Sports Governance in Kenya: Four Institutions, Not One

Sports Kenya, established under section 3, promotes, coordinates and implements grassroots, national and international sports programmes, manages and maintains specified sports facilities, and under section 4(d) sets stadia standards and licenses and inspects stadia. The Kenya Academy of Sports, established under Part IV, establishes and manages sports training academies, organises courses for technical and administration personnel, and promotes research and talent development.

Good sports governance in Kenya starts with registration. Registration and regulation of sports organisations sits with the Sports Registrar, an office within the Public Service created under section 45, who is also responsible for licensing of professional sports and professional sports persons. The Sports Disputes Tribunal is established under section 55. A federation that sends its registration documents to Sports Kenya instead of the Registrar is addressing the wrong body.

Registering a National Sports Organisation

Under section 46, a body shall not operate as a sports organisation unless it is registered under the Act, and the Registrar registers sports organisations as a sports club, a county sports association or a national sports organisation. An application for a national sports organisation must be in the prescribed form, specifying the name, category, office-bearers, head office and postal address, sources of funding and any national or international affiliation, and must be accompanied by a certified copy of the constitution and the prescribed fee. The constitution must contain, as a basic minimum, the provisions in the Second Schedule. Under section 47(2) the Registrar shall not register more than one national sports organisation for any one discipline, which is the statutory basis for the one-federation-per-sport structure that shapes disputes over rival bodies.

The Second Schedule requires, among other things, direct elections by club members, a requirement that only Kenyan citizens may be elected chairperson, secretary or treasurer at national level, elections at intervals of between two and four years with terms not exceeding four years and eligibility for one more term, elections consistent with Article 81 of the Constitution, subscription to anti-doping policies conforming to the World Anti-Doping Code, and subscription to dispute resolution rules consistent with the Sports Disputes Tribunal framework.

Section 48 allows the Registrar to reject an application if the proposed activities or procedures are not in the national interest or the body gave false information, with written notice within fourteen days. Section 51 allows cancellation of a certificate, including where registration was procured through misrepresentation or non-disclosure of material facts.

Funding, Inspection and Intervention Powers

The National Sports Fund provisions in Part III of the Act were repealed by Act No. 7 of 2019 (section 5), so any summary that still describes that Fund as operative is out of date. Under section 52, the Registrar may at any time, or on the Cabinet Secretary’s direction, cause an inspection of a sports organisation and its books, accounts and records, and the organisation and its officials must make those documents available.

Where an organisation fails to comply with the recommendations of an inspection, section 54 allows the Cabinet Secretary to appoint a person or committee to take over its management, or to remove an official who has caused or contributed to a contravention or brought the sporting discipline into disrepute. The appointment may not exceed six months. This power belongs to the Cabinet Secretary, not to Sports Kenya.

Anti-Doping and the Sports Disputes Tribunal

Anti-doping enforcement sits in its own statute, the Anti-Doping Act, 2016, which establishes the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya under section 5. The two frameworks connect through the Second Schedule requirement that a federation’s constitution subscribe to anti-doping rules that conform with the World Anti-Doping Code and comply with the rules of the National Anti-Doping Organisation, so a clause that exists on paper but does not track the Agency’s current rules does not satisfy the Act.

Under section 58 the Tribunal determines appeals against decisions of national sports organisations whose rules allow appeals to it, including disciplinary decisions and non-selection for a Kenyan team, other sports-related disputes that all parties agree to refer and that the Tribunal agrees to hear, and appeals from decisions of the Registrar. Sound sports governance in Kenya also means that federations check that their own rules permit appeals to the Tribunal on the issues they expect to arise.

Keeping Up With Reform

Sports governance in Kenya is not static. The Act has already been amended, as the 2019 repeal of the National Sports Fund shows, and its text and the institutions it creates should be checked against the current consolidated version on Kenya Law before any federation, sponsor or investor relies on a summary. For multi-year arrangements, build in the possibility that the registration framework, funding mechanisms and governance standards may change during the life of the arrangement.