Mega football tournament launched in Kilifi

Kilifi Governor Gideon Munga'ro has launched a mega football tournament that will see 245 teams at the grassroots level participate - with the best players recruited from the tournament getting employment opportunities with the county government.

In a bid to harness the talents of the youth, Governor Munga'ro emphasized that over 5,000 participants from various football clubs would partake in the tournament, competing at the ward and county levels, insisting that their talents will not go wasted and his administration is committed to rewarding raw talents with employment opportunities.

"The main objective of this tournament is to recruit a team from all of our seven sub- counties. We will be scouting for the best players who will eventually form a county team that will form a Kilifi All Stars team, which we believe will be very competitive. This team will be employed by the county government, because we believe sports talents need to be rewarded in a special way and for the first time, we will recruit employees through this mega football tournament,” Munga'ro noted.

Munga'ro pointed out that the two- month tournament will be the largest football competition to have ever taken place in the region and is also aimed at escaping the snare of drugs and substance abuse, especially during this time when schools will be closing.

" Apart from talent identification ,we are also going to use this competition to sensitize about the negative effects of drugs. As leaders, we want to ensure that we get rid of drug and substance abuse by engaging more youths in sports activities," he added.

The county boss also revealed that they are in the process of putting up a multi-million football stadium at the Uwanja wa Water grounds in Kilifi town.

"We have already fenced the ground (Uwanja wa Water), we have allocated funds to build it into a modern stadium that will have a capacity of 10,000. We are also going to upgrade some of the major football fields across the county this financial year. These are some of the efforts we've put into nurturing talents.”

The culmination of the tournament will be on December 12 where finals will be staged with the overall winners walking home with cash prize money and awards.

Each Ward is set to produce four male teams and three ladies' teams, and only players below the age of 25 are eligible to participate.