KPL "Top 8", born

By Feverpitch Team

Kenyan players and their followers have a brand new football championship. The best eight clubs in the country will do battle in a knock-out tournament set to produce high octane showdowns.

It kicks off on March 2; play is on the popular floodlit Wednesday night slot and there is an attractive money reward.

Aptly named Kenyan Premier League’s "Top 8", the tournament’s creation reacts to suggestions and dreams of a resurgent football attendance that boosted the atmosphere in last season’s Kenyan Premier League and appeared not to have whetted their thirst for local football action.

The eagerly-awaited start of the 2011 Premiership is on February 26, but in mid-week, there will be knock-out matches — at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi — of the "KPL Top 8" format not staged before.

The first round involving the eight teams will run for four consecutive Wednesdays — March 2, 9, 16 and 23.

The semi-finals on home and away basis (but all at the Nyayo National Stadium) will take place on March 30, April 6, 13 and 20. The final is on Easter Monday (April 25).

Kenya champions Ulinzi Stars will lead the pack of the clubs that placed in the top half of the 16-team log.

Worthy investment

Western Stima propped the top eight. The KPL have taken the plunge to create the new tournament and are confident their investment of Sh7.5 million will be well worth.

Clubs involved are excitedly looking forward to the new event, and those missing out, clearly feeling the extra pain after disappointing placings in last season’s Premiership.

Each of the "KPL Top 8" participants will have a squad of 25 persons, inclusive of their coaches and other officials.

For every match, KPL will pay for transport, squad allowances at Sh2,000 per person. However, the winning squad members on the final will get an allowance of Sh4,000 each. On top of that, the winning club will earn Sh1million.

Huge earner

Ultimately, the KPL are hopeful that an exciting tournament will, in the short or long term, attract a sponsor and the prospects of it turning out to be a huge money earner for the participants are real.

A similar famous tournament by South Africa’s Premier Soccer League (PSL), called the MTN8 (named after the sponsoring phone company MTN), has an astronomical figure top prize.

Last year’s winner of the MTN8 Cup Final earned R8 million (Sh93.6 million) the richest prize money for any sports competition on the African continent.

The loser and the other six teams in the top eight competition all received a R800,000 (Sh9.3m) appearance fee.

Before the final between Moroka Swallows and Orlando Pirates, the Birds (Swallows) chairman Leon Prins had promised his players a bonus R4m (Sh46.8m) to lift the trophy.

A Moroka Swallows spokesperson, then, said: ‘It is our policy that we give players half the prize money. We did that when we won the Nedbank Cup in 2009 where the players received R3 million of the R6 million prize money’.

However many hearts were broken and earnings lost when Swalllows lost the MTN8 final, 4-2 on post match penalties (1-1 in normal play) against Orlando Pirates.