Soyas 2018: FKF, AK To Face Off For Federation Of The Year Award

NAIROBI, Kenya- Football Kenya Federation, Athletics Kenya and Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association (KSSSA) will face off for the Federation of the Year prize at the 2018 Safaricom Sports Personality of the Year Awards (Soyas) that will be held on January 11 in Mombasa.

Tennis Kenya who won the 2016 award failed to make the final shortlist of three having been included in the initial nominees of five.

Having been maligned for many years as the hallmark of mismanagement of sport in the country, FKF are in the running to win the prestigious accolade for the first time ever after a year where the most popular game notched a number of milestones.

National senior men’s team, Harambee Stars qualified for the 2018 CAF Africa Cup of Nations finals for the first time in 15 years with their female counterparts, Starlets only missing the 2018 Africa Women Cup of Nations when their successful appeal against Equatorial Guinea was overturned by the Disciplinary Committee of the continental body.

FKF has also trained 108 local referees from January to attain CAF certification with another 1,328 from the grassroots receiving basic and advanced level qualifications.

For the first time teams playing in the FKF Women Premier League received grants to participate in the top tier domestic competition with 25,000 kids countrywide featuring in the under 13 and under 15 youth leagues during the year.

The national Under 17 team, reached semi-finals of the Council of East and Central Africa Football Association Cecafa as Startlets made the last four of the South African Cosafa Women’s Championships in Zimbabwe having been an invitational side.

Perennial Federation of the Year winners at the Soyas, AK saw their Team Kenya charges start 2018 by dominating the CAA Africa Cross Country Championships in Chlef, Algeria, winning gold in both senior men and women races as well as the under 20 events and the overall title.

Strong side

In April, Kenya minted four gold, seven silver and five bronze from track and field at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, with boxing the only other sport out of the 15 disciplines representing Kenya to celebrate a podium home with a bronze.

In June, AK picked a strong side that topped the medal charts for the first time since Moncton 2010 at the IAAF World Under 20 Championships in Tampere, Finland with six gold, four silver and bronze ahead of sprinting superpowers Jamaica and USA.

A month later they partnered with the government put up a successful bid to host the Nairobi 2020 IAAF World Under 20 Athletics Championships.

In August, team Kenya won the CAA Africa Athletics Championships title in Asaba, Nigeria with 11 gold, six silver and two bronze to reclaim the crown they last took in 2010 when they hosted the biannual continental showpiece in Nairobi.

At the October Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina the country’s track and field team won three gold and a silver to rank joined 26th with New Zealand out of the 206 countries that took part.

AK also hosted the successful second national seminar on doping in Nairobi earlier this month besides partnering with the Anti-Doping Association of Kenya (ADAK) to stage a series of outreach workshops to tackle the vice that has threatened the rich legacy of the sport.

KSSSA led the country’s successful overall title defence at the East Africa Secondary Schoold Games in Rwanda that ensured Kenya joined the Africa Secondary Schools Sports Association and World Secondary Schools Sports Association, guaranteeing participation in international events starting 2019.

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

The awards that has been co-sponsored by Mombasa County, National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Communication Authority (CA), Kenya Pipeline, Kenya Power, LapFund, New KCC, Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), GOTv and Protel Studios, will at the iconic Fort Jesus.