Kenya's Gor Mahia issued with second Fifa transfer ban this year

Kenya's record champions Gor Mahia have been handed a second Fifa transfer ban this year after once again failing to pay a former player his dues.

Fifa has ruled that the Nairobi club cannot register any new players until it has paid just over $30,000 to Ghana's Owusu Jackson.

On Tuesday, the club signed a new player ahead of Fifa imposing its latest transfer ban on Wednesday.

The ruling comes after a finding by Fifa that the club could not rely on a document claiming mutual termination of Jackson's contract in order to avoid paying his dues after issues were raised concerning the signature on the document.

The previous ban imposed by Fifa ran from February until September, by when one of Kenya's biggest clubs had settled its dues with two former players and a coach.

This latest ruling came after the 19-time league winners failed to transfer funds to Jackson within 45 days of being expressly instructed to do so by Fifa's Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC).

Following Jackson's request on Tuesday to Fifa to thus issue a sanction, football's world governing body followed through with action.

"We wish to inform the parties that a ban from registering new players internationally has been implemented by Fifa as of today," the organisation informed Gor Mahia on Wednesday.

The ban will be lifted as soon as the club, which took to crowd-funding last year in a bid to assuage its financial crisis, pays Jackson all his dues.

'Rule of thumb'

In late June, Fifa's DRC found against the Kenyan club despite it claiming it had mutually agreed the end of Jackson's contract with the player himself in July 2020 - which the Ghanaian, who joined the club in January last year, denied.

The club also provided a series of alleged proof of payments, none of which Jackson said he had received.

Fifa concluded that it 'could not take the termination agreement into consideration' in light of the fact that Jackson had used a thumb print to sign various documents at the start of his contract, whereas the 'confirmation of release bears a signature'.

The DRC also found that the club 'failed to prove that any of the alleged amounts [had] been transferred to the player's bank account'.

The transfer ban cannot last more than three windows, following which the matter can go back to Fifa's Disciplinary Committee for further possible sanctions.

Earlier this year, Gor Mahia - whom the BBC has approached for comment - signed players despite its Fifa transfer ban, stating that the new arrivals would only be registered once their sanction had been lifted.