St. Brigids Girls Kiminini coach questions late FEASSSA withdrawal

St. Brigids Girls Kiminini Basketball head coach Alex Wasike has raised questions after his team was left out of Kenya’s delegation to the 2026 Federation of East Africa Secondary Schools Sports Association (FEASSSA) Games in Morogoro, Tanzania. The 23rd edition of the FEASSSA Games is scheduled for 12-23 August.Download our Mozzart Sport App for more newsWasike has spoken out following a decision by the Ministry of Education to cap Kenya’s representation at the regional championships, leaving the KSSSA Term One national basketball 5×5 bronze medallists among the teams that will not travel to Morogoro, despite initially being listed among Kenya’s qualifiers for the regional championships.In a strongly worded social media statement, Wasike said the team acted on the communication from KSSSA and began preparations for Morogoro on the understanding that the bronze medal was enough to secure their place in the Kenyan delegation.During the First Term KSSSA Games, St. Brigids Girls Kiminini won a bronze medal in basketball. ##NAJAVA_MECA_9883186##Together with the other bronze medallists, they were officially and publicly informed that they had qualified to represent Kenya at the FEASSSA Championships, and according to Wasike, the school took that communication seriously.The coach said the team understood the KSSSA rules to mean that, having qualified for FEASSSA through the 5×5 basketball championship, they could not use the same players in the Second Term 3×3 basketball competition.As a result, St. Brigids sacrificed the opportunity to compete in the 3×3 championship while preparing for what they believed would be their next assignment, representing Kenya in Morogoro.Why key official believes Kenyan swimming is on the rise after 2026 Commonwealth GamesThroughout the preparation period, Wasike says KSSSA continued communicating with the school, with instructions issued regarding reporting and departure for the national camp in preparation for FEASSSA.Schools, parents, players and coaches therefore acted on those official communications.Then, on the eve of departure, came the communication that KSSSA had withdrawn the bronze medallists from some disciplines, including the St. Brigids basketball team. St. Brigids had earned its place after finishing third in the girls’ basketball 5×5 competition at the 2026 KSSSA Term One National Games in Kisumu. Kenyan Madina Okot secures move to Australia after dream WNBA draftThe team finished behind champions Butere Girls and runners-up Kaya Tiwi, with all three initially listed as Kenya’s qualifiers for FEASSSA.However, a subsequent decision to limit the number of Kenyan teams travelling to Morogoro has changed the composition of the delegation. Under the new arrangement, Kenya will send two teams in most disciplines, while sports in which the country produced champions at last year’s FEASSSA Games will have three representatives.The move has particularly affected teams that finished third at the 2026 KSSSA nationals and had understood that their podium finishes had earned them a ticket to the regional championships.For St. Brigids, the disappointment has been compounded by what Wasike describes as sacrifices made by the players and school after they were officially informed that they had qualified. The coach argues that the decision also influenced the team’s participation in the Second Term 3×3 basketball championship.“If the limitation on the number of teams had been communicated before the Second Term 3×3 competition, St. Brigids could potentially have made a different decision regarding its squad and participated in another national championship,” said Wasike.The coach said the players had trained, remained committed and made sacrifices because they trusted the information communicated by the institutions responsible for school sports. He also pointed to the financial and logistical commitment made by parents and the school in preparing the students for the trip.The central issue raised by Wasike is therefore not simply whether St. Brigids will travel to Tanzania, but whether schools and student-athletes can reasonably make decisions based on official qualification information when the composition of the national delegation can subsequently change.Top American swimming coach to conduct clinic in KenyaWasike has consequently called on KSSSA and the Ministry of Education to reconsider how such decisions are communicated, insisting that student welfare should remain at the centre of school sports administration.“For basketball and rugby, in particular, this situation has left many young athletes asking why they were allowed to prepare, sacrifice other opportunities and believe in a dream, only for that dream to be taken away at the very last moment,” he said.The controversy comes at a time when Kenya is preparing to defend its reputation as one of the leading sporting nations in the regional school games. The 2026 FEASSSA championship will provide another opportunity for Kenyan schools to test themselves against the best from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.Kenya’s school sports system has long used the KSSSA national championships as the pathway to FEASSSA, making qualification an important incentive for schools competing at the national level. The 2026 Term One nationals were explicitly presented as a route to the Morogoro games.The issue now presents an administrative question for KSSSA: when a team has been publicly identified as a FEASSSA qualifier, what obligations does that create for the federation and what protection should be afforded to the students who plan their sporting commitments around that qualification?For St. Brigids, however, the immediate consequence is clear. A team that won a national bronze medal, believed it had earned a place in the East African championship and adjusted its season accordingly, will watch the FEASSSA Games from home.Wasike insists his intervention is not about bitterness or seeking special treatment for St. Brigids. Why KSSSA boss is pushing for more government fundingRather, he says, it is about ensuring that future student-athletes do not find themselves in the same position.“These are not merely names on a list,” wrote Wasike. “They are young people with dreams, talent, families who believe in them and years of hard work behind them.”With the Morogoro Games now just days away, the debate over Kenya’s reduced delegation has added an unexpected storyline to the build-up, one that goes beyond medals and results and into the question of how the country’s school sports pathway protects the athletes it is designed to develop.