Sports governance in Kenya rests on the Sports Act (Cap 223), which established Sports Kenya, the Kenya Academy of Sports, the office of the Sports Registrar, and the Sports Disputes Tribunal as four distinct institutions with separate functions. The framework is currently in the middle of its most significant review since the Act came into force in 2013, so a federation, club, or sponsor working from a five-year-old summary of “how sports governance works in Kenya” may already be missing a structural change or about to be overtaken by one.
Sports Governance in Kenya: Four Institutions, Not One
A common assumption is that Sports Kenya is the single body federations deal with for everything, but the Act actually splits functions across four separate institutions. Sports Kenya, established under Section 3, is responsible for managing sports facilities, promoting and coordinating national and international sports programmes, and supporting talent identification in collaboration with county governments. The Kenya Academy of Sports, established under Part IV, runs training academies and sports research rather than facility management. The Sports Disputes Tribunal, established under Section 55, hears appeals against disciplinary and selection decisions and other sports-related disputes referred to it. Registration and regulation of sports organisations, the function many people assume sits with Sports Kenya, actually sits with the Sports Registrar, a distinct office within the Public Service created under Section 45. Getting this institutional map wrong matters in practice: a federation that sends its registration documents or a dispute over a rejected application to Sports Kenya rather than to the Registrar’s office is addressing the wrong body entirely.
Registering a National Sports Organisation
Under Section 46, a body cannot operate as a sports organisation unless registered with the Sports Registrar as a sports club, a county sports association, or a national sports organisation. An application for national-level registration must specify the body’s name, the office-bearers, its head office, its 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 Second Schedule sets minimum content the constitution must contain: elections of officials conducted directly by club members rather than through delegated colleges, a citizenship requirement for the chairperson, secretary, and treasurer at national level, election cycles held every two to four years in line with the general electoral principles in Article 81 of the Constitution, subscription to anti-doping policies consistent with the World Anti-Doping Code, and subscription to the Sports Disputes Tribunal’s dispute resolution framework. The Registrar will not register more than one national sports organisation for any single discipline, which is the statutory basis for the “one federation per sport” structure that shapes most disputes over breakaway or rival bodies. The Registrar can reject an application where the proposed activities are not in the national interest or where false information was given, and can later cancel a certificate where registration was procured by misrepresentation, where licence conditions have been violated, or where the organisation has otherwise breached the Act, though only after giving notice and an opportunity to be heard.
State Funding, Accountability, and Intervention Powers
The Act’s original funding institution, the National Sports Fund established under Part III, was repealed in its entirety by the Sports (Amendment) Act, 2019, along with the Board of Trustees that ran it. Sports funding now flows mainly through the Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund, established under the Public Finance Management (Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund) Regulations, 2018, a mechanism that sits alongside rather than inside the Sports Act itself. Sports institutions and the organisations that receive public funding remain subject to audit under the Public Audit Act, and the Registrar’s inspection powers under Section 52 allow examination of a sports organisation’s books, accounts, and records at any time, with a failure to produce documents on request itself constituting a contravention of the Act. Where an organisation fails to act on an inspection’s recommendations, Section 54 lets the Cabinet Secretary appoint a person or committee to take over its management for up to six months, or remove an official found to have caused a contravention or brought the sporting discipline into disrepute. That intervention power belongs to the Cabinet Secretary, not to Sports Kenya, which is another point where the institutional split matters in a live governance dispute.
Anti-Doping and Electoral Governance in Federation Constitutions
Anti-doping enforcement in Kenya sits under its own statute, the Anti-Doping Act, 2016, which established the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) as the body responsible for testing, results management, and sanctions, independently of the Sports Act. The two frameworks connect through the Second Schedule requirement that every registered federation’s constitution subscribe to anti-doping policies and rules consistent with the World Anti-Doping Code and with ADAK’s own rules as Kenya’s national anti-doping organisation. A federation cannot satisfy its Sports Act registration obligations with an anti-doping clause that exists on paper but does not actually track to ADAK’s current rules. On governance more broadly, federation elections must follow Article 81’s general electoral principles, and appointments to the Sports Kenya Board and the Academy Council are required by Sections 6 and 35 to have regard to gender equity and affirmative action, though that is a principle the appointing authority must take into account rather than a fixed numeric quota written into the Second Schedule for federation boards themselves; readers should treat any claim of a specific gender quota for federation governing bodies with some caution unless it is tied to a specific clause, since the current Second Schedule does not impose one in those terms.
A Framework Under Reform
The Sports Act is not a settled text right now. A government taskforce convened in late 2024 under the chairmanship of Senior Counsel John Ohanga has produced a draft Sports Bill, 2026, published by the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports, alongside a National Sports Policy, 2025, proposing a full restructuring that includes a new National Sports Regulatory Authority and a National Sports Development Fund, defined term limits for federation officials, restrictions on holding multiple federation offices simultaneously, and an explicit gender equity clause for sports organisations rather than the general principle that currently applies only to public board appointments. A separate Sports (Amendment) Bill, 2026 is also before Parliament. Neither has been enacted as of this writing, and the Sports Act, Cap 223 in its current form remains the operative law, but a federation, sponsor, or investor planning a multi-year arrangement in Kenyan sport should build in the possibility that the registration body, the funding mechanism, and the governance standards it is relying on today may look different within the life of that arrangement. The pattern is not new: an earlier Sports (Amendment) Bill was tabled in 2021 and a separate County Sports Associations Fund bill followed in 2024, and neither displaced the underlying Act, so the more realistic planning assumption is incremental change layered onto the existing structure rather than a single clean replacement on a fixed date.
Clay & Associates Advocates advises sports federations, clubs, and investors on registration with the Sports Registrar, governance compliance under the Second Schedule, and disputes arising from inspection, intervention, or cancellation action. If your organisation needs its constitution reviewed against current registration requirements, or needs to understand what the pending reform actually changes for a federation already in operation, we can help you work through it.
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Related reading: The Sports Disputes Tribunal | Sports Contracts in Kenya | Image Rights and IP in Sports
For tailored legal advice on this matter, speak with our sports law practice team at Clay & Associates Advocates. We advise businesses and individuals across Kenya on Sports Law matters from our offices at Nextgen Mall, Nairobi.
