FKF national under-13 tournament kicks off

A Football Kenya Federation National Under-13 championship kicked off over the weekend across six regions in the country and involving 1,347 teams.

The competition, a first of its kind in Kenya, began at the sub-branch level and will advance to the branch level next week before culminating with the national championships in Nakuru at the end of this month.

At the end of the tournament, some 25 youngsters will be selected to form a team that will travel to England in August to play a friendly match against a Southampton under-13 side.

FKF president Nick Mwendwa revealed this at the weekend during the launch of the tournament.

“We have big plans for football in this country, and we want to get children competing at this level.

“More than 16,000 young ones will compete at this level and we intend to hold this competition every time the kids are on holiday.

“Apart from giving the kids a platform to showcase their talent, we intend to acquire the personal details of all these players and store that information in a national database so that we can track their progress throughout their careers. Age cheating will be a thing of the past,” he said.

For this year’s competition, only teams that took part in FKF’s Under-13 leagues across the country last year have been allowed to register, meaning that North Eastern and Eastern regions will not field any sides in this competition.

The two regions did not stage under-13 leagues last year.