Holland, Paris Saint Germain win KFC tourney titles

The winners of 2014 KFC Football Beat Tournament celebrate with a trophy at Herliquins grounds on Saturday, Sptember 14th. 2014. Photo/Jonah Onyango.

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Holland are the winners of the inaugural annual Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Football Beat U-14 titles.

PSG thrashed Atletico Madrid 4-0 in the boys' final as Holland won the girls' contest after beating Barcelona 2-0 at the Kenya Harlequin grounds, Nairobi, on Saturday.

On their way to the finals, PSG had topped the boys' pool A with six points, Brazil and Real Madrid had three points apiece while Argentina had none in the matches played in a round robin format. Boys' pool B was topped by Atletico with six points, Man City had four, Bayern one and France none.

Holland had beaten Man United 1-0, Germany 2-0, while Barcelona won 2-0 against Chelsea on their way to the girls finals.

Winning PSG squad included Calfrence Muso, Michael Oluoch, Abel Musebe, Denis Mugambi, David Nyanjui and Bekote Mwachiro while Atletico was comprised of Alvin Musebe, Michael Munene, Billy Ouko, Kimani Saruni, Haward Benson and David Gichohi.

"Apart from participating, I have interacted with other children from different backgrounds. We will defend this title next year," said Albright Madeline, the Holland team mid fielder.

The winning teams were presented trophies and medals by Sithabile Maphumulo, KFC Senior Brand Manager Africa.

KFC Marketing Manager Jemimah Baariu said: "We are interested in reaching out to children in a fun way. We settled on football which is a game familiar to them. We realise that by making it an annual event, we will be reaching out to a larger number of children within our target age bracket."

She added:"As KFC continues to open up outlets in the various towns, we are optimistic that the Football Beat programme shall reach out to a greater number across the country."

The tournament brought together 16 teams of 96 players selected from 947 players who registered for selections.

In order to qualify for the final 96 slot, the players were taken through a series of football techniques involving controls, formation, passes, penalty kicks, juggling and many others where they scored points and those with the highest points qualified for the prestigious tournament.