Blak Blad accused of dirty play after weekend walkover against Strathmore Leos

Kenyatta University’s Blak Blad has been accused of engaging in politics after refusing to play their rescheduled Kenya Cup game against counterparts Strathmore Leos over the weekend in order to receive a walk over.

Initially, Blad were set to play Leos back on 17 December 2022 but the match had to be postponed at the time owing to Strathmore Leos’ involvement in the Eastern Africa University Games that took place in Uganda.

At the time, according to official documents seen by Mozzart Sport, Kenyatta University had agreed to postpone their league clash alongside their Eric Shirley Shield (ESS) fixture after coming into an agreement with Leos who had made the request following the blessings of Kenya Rugby Union (KU) who gave them the leeway of coming up with their own solution.

“We are in agreement with KU to postpone our December 17th 2022 KC and ESS fixtures to a later date due to unavoidable circumstances. Florence from KU copied herein can confirm the same officially,” Leos’ Nick Ongeri wrote first.

“Good afternoon, I confirm that we have agreed to postpone the match between us Kenyatta University and Strathmore to a later date,” a mail from Kenyatta University’s Dr. Florence Gitau directed to Kenya Rugby Union confirmed.

In correspondence, KRU Director of Rugby Thomas Odundo noted the confirmation from the two sides saying,” This is well noted, thank you both.”

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However, on the rescheduled match day, Blad made a turnaround as they refused to honour the fixture insisting they should be given a walkover instead.

“Having had consultations with my executive team, Blak Blad RFC's decision remains the same as earlier stated. Having done everything within our means to enable the game to be played on 17th of December 2022 as per the 2022/23 Kenya Cup Calendar and even going extra mile to keep the players from going home for one week during Christmas recess just to honor the match, school's facilitations of ambulance, security as well as marked pitch and students match allowance among other pregame activities that were done and can't be recovered, the team decided to stand it's ground on our earlier decision,” a letter from Blad’s Motto Williams read.

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Owing to the disagreement, KRU ruled in favour of Blad with the view that both sides had now failed to reach an agreement.

“From our discussion in our LFC meeting held on 19th January. It was resolved that a failure for the two teams to come into an agreement, the game will be considered a walk over and points awarded to black blad rfc. Kindly note that any aggrieved party has the option to appeal the above decision,” KRU Fixtures Director Leslie Mwangale stated.

Having received the ruling, Strathmore Leos have appealed the decision and await to hear the outcome of the judgement from KRU.