Senator Chesang Partners With FKF For Grassroots Football Tournament
The Super League event will run for close to an entire month, commencing on Saturday, October 7 at Ndura Farm in Trans Nzoia County and culminating in the final on Wednesday, October 25.
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Trans Nzoia Senator, Allan Chesang has announced the return of the Allan Chesang Super League, a grassroots football tournament aimed at empowering youth talents in a competitive fashion.
The second edition of the Super League event will run for close to an entire month, commencing on Saturday, October 7 at Ndura Farm in Trans Nzoia County and culminating in the final on Wednesday, October 25.
Speaking to Viral Tea on Tuesday, October 3, the youthful politician who was elected Trans Nzoia senator in the 2022 General Election on a United Democratic Alliance (UDA), revealed that he partnered with the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to bring forth a tournament that promotes fairness amongst the participating teams.
He added that the purpose of staging the grassroots tournament was to alleviate the youth from unemployment in the county by not only keeping them actively involved but also supporting their talents in a way that gives them a new lease on life away from drug abuse, crime among other vices.
Trans Nzoia Senator Allan Chesang with football players at Ndura Sports Complex in Kitale on October 3, 2023. /ALLAN CHESANG
"This time round, we are including all the teams in the county; we are including 16 teams in every ward and we also have 50 ladies' teams and 400 men's teams," he explained.
"We want to make sure all our youths are participating in this tournament...because we have seen the level of unemployment that is in this county and we want to make sure we keep our boys busy and also empower their talents in a way that makes them keep away from drug abuse among other vices."
To spur an intense battle for bragging rights and football supremacy in Trans Nzoia, Chesang added that the winners in the men's category will take home prize money of Ksh1 million.
Ksh500,000 will go to the runners-up while Ksh250,000 will go to the third-best-ranked team. Ksh100,000 will go to the team that finishes fourth-best, on top of individual awards presented to the best players.
For the women, the winning team will part with Ksh300,000 with runners-up getting Ksh200,000 and third place Ksh100,000. Ksh50,000 will go to fourth place.
"We will have small awards at the constituency level whereby our teams which will win at those levels will get a trophy and some facilitation so that they can participate in the county finals," he went on.
When questioned on why he was putting less prize money into the women's teams compared to men's, Chesang explained that the intensity of the tournament as well as the time spent training for each match was taken into consideration.
"Someone asked me why we have put in less money for the ladies but we only have 50 games for the 50 women's teams and the men will be very tired competing in these 400 games, so we are trying to raise the prize money just to consider that they will take much of their time training and it's very difficult to win it.
"As days go by, as we partner with other partners, we know that my next tournament next year will have more prizes because we are still having different partners coming on board," he revealed, adding that one of the partners supplied kits to the competing football teams, meaning it will be mandatory for them to compete while wearing the kits.
The senator further noted that other games will also be featured in the course of the tournament including volleyball, pool as well as indoor games so as to include and incorporate the Trans Nzoia youths.
In terms of partners, Chesang also partnered with the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) in terms of airing the events as well as advertising them, expressing hope that "maybe there will be more prizes by the end of this tournament."
