diff --git a/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/defaults/main.yml b/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/defaults/main.yml
index 686c0e9bc..274f62d0a 100644
--- a/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/defaults/main.yml
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 ---
 run_gitinfos: false
 
+# Skip installation of the EPEL repository
+skip_epel: false
+
 epel_rpm_download_url: "https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm"
 
 common_required_pkgs:
diff --git a/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/tasks/main.yml b/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/tasks/main.yml
index 38a329781..b996acff8 100644
--- a/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/roles/kubernetes/preinstall/tasks/main.yml
@@ -114,6 +114,7 @@
     - ansible_distribution in ["CentOS","RedHat"]
     - not is_atomic
     - epel_rpm_download_url != ''
+    - not skip_epel
   register: epel_task_result
   until: epel_task_result|succeeded
   retries: 4