Kenya’s sevens players have refused to take part in training ahead of next week’s opening sevens world series tournament in Dubai in a standoff with the national federation over bonus payments.The sevens players are demanding match-by-match bonuses for the 2015-2016 series season totaling about 20 million shillings before they resume training, barely a week before the opening leg of the 10-tournament series.
Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) which had offered to pay them only a paltry three million shillings as bonus money but the players have remained still over the payment in which over three past seasons, nine of the senior team players were left out of the squad at the start of the 2014-2015 season after they refused to sign new contracts based on their performances in the competition.
The government had clarified that it paid all pending salaries and match bonuses from last year to Kenya Sevens players and technical bench but the money has not yet been received in the Kenya seven’s players accounts.
The standoff led to the cancellation of the naming of the final 12-man touring squad on Thursday.
The tournament will kick-off on Friday December 2, 2016 in Dubai where Kenya is in pool D with France, Australia and Japan.
