Harambee Starlets will not participate in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics qualifiers.
CAF, Africa’s football governing body, on Sunday evening released a list of 25 countries to take part in the qualifiers with the draw set for Tuesday in Cairo, Egypt, yet, Kenya is conspicuously missing.
The 25 nations include Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, RD Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia.
Football Kenya Federation confirmed that the door to express interest in participating in the qualifiers was opened at a time when Kenya was suspended from international football.
Kenya was thrown out of international football in February last year for government interference and remained in the dark up to November.
The government-installed committees ran football in the country during the time the period in which Kenya was in Zurich’s bad books,
“On April 11, 2022, FKF received a circular from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) requiring Member Associations to confirm engagement of their national teams in the aforementioned Olympics Qualifiers before the deadline set on April 29, 2022.Owing to Kenya’s suspension by World Governing body FIFA at the time, the Federation could not confirm participation of the Harambee Starlets in the qualifiers,” said FKF Chief Executive Officer Barry Otieno.
Starlets, Kenya’s senior women’s national football team, have not played a match since FIFA banned Kenya from all football activities for government interference in February last year.
The ban has since been lifted and the Starlets’ men’s counterparts, Stars have since played Iran in Tehran in a friendly.
Conversely, in April, Starlets were scheduled to play a friendly against Albania in Tirana, but it aborted with logistical challenges being cited as the reason.
The national body insists that the team will return to action in the subsequent international windows.
“FKF, nonetheless, remains committed to seeking potential opponents to keep the Starlets engaged in the upcoming international windows in anticipation for future CECAFA, CAF and FIFA assignments,” added Otieno.
