Politicians and village tournaments: Value addition or publicity stunt?

At the turn of every Christmas season, politicians, in their characteristics style, have formed a penchant of retreating to the constituencies to organize grassroots football tournaments, usually targeting non-existent village teams which are cobbled together weeks to the event.

And the honourable members, in most cases, leave no stone unturned in ensuring ‘successes of the tourney’.

Not only are villagers mobilized to attend, but teams are registered in high numbers too, kits and boots provided, trophies for the winning teams provided, and cash token for the participating teams availed.

Under a natural scheme of things, such tourneys would be organized with the involvement of Football Kenya Federation, to ensure they meet the bare-minimum standards, and also ensure that coaches are at hand to scout talents.

It is such talents that in future feed the national teams and topflight league clubs.

But, because they are politicians, and have their end goal, which is to gain political capital, caution is usually thrown to the wind; anything goes, so long as the honourable member gets the much needed publicity.

Granted that these tourneys are here with us – it’s actually their season – are there any benefits derived by aspiring footballers or could it just be a case of political capital ?

In some cases, organisersers  argue that the aim is to keep the youth busy, away from the trap of drug abuse and teenage pregnancies.

But is this the case?

Sammy Maganga, a football enthusiast who has run tournaments at ward level in Luanda, subscribes to the above thought.

According to him, many are the times that scouts flood his tourneys in search of talent.

Meanwhile, Keya Benjamin, Mother Well FC coach, says many teams usually bring players from other well-established teams to help local teams win tournaments, eyeing monetary gains, usually set aside for top three teams.

“In fact tournament organisers sideline the technical bench while awarding best teams,’ lamented Keya.

Nyota Alex,  a communication director at Blue Stars echos Keya sentiments saying the sole beneficiaries of the tournaments are politicians as no peer educators are usually invited to advise youths during the tournament, adding that some of the players even compete in the competitions while drunk defeating its purpose, if ever there was any.

In Vihiga County, several tournaments are currently running at ward and constituency level, organized by aspiring politicians and incumbents.

Bunyore Starlets assistant coach Zachariah Amakhang’a thinks that it will be difficult for the county to nurture football talents through such tourneys, which he says have short term objectives – of mainly marketing the politician.

Former Harambe Stars player and Luanda Villa coach, Tom Tera,  says the tournaments lack consistency hence scouts cannot follow the progress of a player compared to league matches, adding that in leagues there is order and systems, monitored by the federation while such village tourneys play to their own rules which might not benefit a player.

Tags:

politicians christmas season Village tournamnets

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