This was supposed to be the weekend Kenyan football came back to life. The 2026/27 FKF Premier League was set to begin on Sunday, September 21, and AFC Leopards fans had already bought their tickets for the opening fixture against Bandari at the stadium. They had made plans, cleared their Sundays, and put money on the table — real money — for a match that never happened.
On Friday evening, two court rulings landed like a double punch to Kenyan football’s jaw. A High Court in Muranga ordered the league to halt before it even started, and a separate ruling out of Kiambu went further, decreeing that the competition could not proceed at all unless Mombasa United was included in the fixtures. Two courts, two orders, one dead weekend of football — and thousands of fans left holding useless tickets.
AFC Leopards, the 12-time league champions, moved quickly to contain the fallout. The club issued a public statement confirming that all refunds for the aborted Bandari match had been processed, and they went a step further, inviting any fan who had not yet received their money to reach out directly. “We wish to confirm to all our fans and stakeholders that refunds for the postponed Bandari match have been processed. Let us know if anyone has not received their cash,” the club said. It was a clean, responsible move — but it doesn’t paper over the deeper rot this situation exposes.
Across town, Leopards’ fiercest rivals Gor Mahia took a different approach. K’Ogalo told their fans to hold onto their tickets, promising that the same purchases would be honoured whenever the season eventually gets underway. “For fans who had already purchased tickets please do not worry. Your tickets remain valid and will be honoured when the season officially gets underway,” the club announced. Two rival clubs, two different crisis responses — both scrambling to manage a mess they didn’t create.
Here is what makes this genuinely infuriating: this is the third time the start of the new season has been postponed because of court cases. Not once, not twice — three times. Kenyan football’s governing body, the Football Kenya Federation, has now watched the league’s opening weekend collapse repeatedly, dragged into legal battles that seem to have no end in sight, while clubs, fans, and players are left in a perpetual holding pattern. Young Kenyans who follow this game passionately, who spend money they don’t always have on tickets and jerseys and matatu fare to get to stadiums, deserve better than this cycle of false starts and official incompetence. The courts are doing their job. Someone at FKF clearly isn’t doing theirs.
