Delight as FKF makes Soya awards final list

Football Kenya Federation president Nick Mwendwa at Kasarani Stadium ahead of AFCON group F return leg at Kasarani, Oct 12, 2018. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

KSSSA won the overall East Africa schools title

Other federations in contention for the sports award are Athletics Kenya and KSSSA.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) will battle for the Safaricom Sport Personality of the Year Awards, Federation of the year category, after being nominated in the final list.

FKF will battle with the other two nominees; Athletics Kenya and Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association (KSSSA).

Tennis Kenya, who won the award in 2016, did not make the final cut, despite being in the initial list of top five nominees.

Some of the highlights that helped FKF get the nod is the qualification of national football team Harambee Stars to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).

This is the first time in 15 years that Stars will play in the continental showpiece.

The federation has also facilitated the training of 108 referees from January and six of the whistle blowers attained Confederation of African Football (CAF) status.

The federation also trained 1,328 coaches countrywide at basic and advanced levels.

This year, FKF also issued grants to Women Premier League teams to help honour their league matches and ran Under-13 and U15 youth leagues that brought together about 25,000 children countrywide.

The national U17 football team reached semi-finals of the Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (Cecafa) and the national women football team Harambee Starlets reached Cosafa semi-finals in Zimbabwe.

On their part, KSSSA led Kenya’s successful title defence campaign that saw Kenyan teams dominate the regional games in Rwanda where they retained the overall title.

They also ensured Kenya joined the Africa Secondary Schools Sports Association body and also the World Secondary Schools Sports Association, guaranteeing participation in international events starting 2019.

KSSSA also renewed a five-year sponsorship deal for national Term One Games and East Africa Games with key partner Brookside Dairy Limited.

Athletics Kenya started 2018 by dominating the Africa Cross Country Championships in Algeria, where they won gold in both senior men and women races as well as the Under-20 events.

They also bagged the overall title.

In June, AK picked a strong side that topped the medal table during the World Under-20 Championships in Tampere, Finalnd.

A month later, they put up a successful bid to win the hosting rights of the 2020 World Under-20 Athletics Championships.

In August, team Kenya won the Africa Athletics Championships title in Asaba, Nigeria.

The annual Soya awards, have been co-sponsored by Mombasa County, National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and Communication Authority (CA).

Others are Kenya Pipeline, Kenya Power, LapFund, New KCC, Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), GOTv and Protel Studios.

The gala will be held on January 11 at Fort Jesus, in Mombasa.

Paralympian Samuel Muchai won last season's award.