Bartamaha (Nairobi):- The Somali sporting community in Kenya held a very huge ceremony at the Kilimanjaro Restaurant in Nairobi on Friday evening to show their support for last month’s election congress (19 July) of Somali Football Federation (SFF) in the presence of high level Somali-Kenyan football dignitaries.
The ceremony had two main goals, one was to show support for the country’s football federation and the other was to thank and see off the Somali national U-20 squad who returned from Asmara where it participated in the 2010 CECAFA tourney for friendship and development.
More than 150 people including, Kenyan guests, former national team players, former coaches, Somali journalists whom fled from Mogadishu and dignitaries form Somali sports community in Kenya had taken part in the well-organized dinner ceremony.
The manager of Somali football team in Kenya, the East Leigh stars, and former national team coach Abdi Farah Ali praised the Somali football federation for its huge activities in the lawless country.
Mohamed Salad Daqarre, a co-organizer of the dinner and the chairman of Midnimo football club for his part said that he was very much happy that the Somali football family members is coming together and discussing the future of Somali football and how to develop it.
He presented 20 soccer balls to the manager of the Somali football team in Kenya, the East Leigh stars, and hoped thy will win the on going 3rd division football league in Kenya.
Abokar Mohamed Sheik, the deputy chairman of the well known Somali football club Banadir Telecom hailed some tangible progress made.
“As you know Somalia had never had two teams going for international matches at one time, but now it happened and as you see the U-20 is coming from Asmara, while the U-17 is currently training in Doha, Qatar in preparations for a hot contest against Egypt next moth,†he said.
The leader of Somali sports community in Kenya and former national team player Anas Ali Mahmoud said that his community is prioritizing two more important goals : to promote Somali football in Kenya despite being refugees and to keep Somali youths there from using drugs or falling into other kinds of crimes.
The U-20 Somali team did not reach the semis of the CECAFA U-20 tourney for friendship and development held in Asmara.
The team is now back in the volatile Mogadishu, where artilleries, tanks and mortar fires are hitting every where, as fighting between Islamist insurgents on one side and Somali government forces and African Union peacekeepers on the other side is escalating.
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Source:-APA.
