NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 7 – The devolution of sports to the counties has been touted as a masterstroke that will aid in identification and growth of promising rugby talent from every corner of the country.
Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) chair Oduor Gangla said counties now have an opportunity to invest in budding talents from the grassroots and help grow the game from the ground up.
“From the 2010 Constitution, you realise that administration of sports belongs to the counties, save for the national teams and leagues. County governments have a budget with an allocation for sports and what we envisage is an opportunity to strengthen the county leagues,” Gangla said.
He added: “In Kwale, we have many schools that are now playing rugby thanks to the good work of South Coast Pirates. The next step is to develop feeder leagues beneath the South Coast Pirates. The same thing is happening in Bungoma where we have county leagues. If counties have many teams, they can come together and we, as the mother body, will be ready to support them with training and education to improve their capacity.”
The Union itself has been involved in a talent development programme, known as Damu Pevu, a partnership that seeks to plant rugby in primary schools countrywide.
Gangla said the initiative has borne fruits, noting that they can do even better if they work together with counties.
“We have embarked on an aggressive programme of developing rugby in primary schools under the Damu Pevu partnership. We have so far covered over 100 primary schools …so now this programme can be expanded and entrenched into the counties so that we can use some of that budget allocated to rugby by the counties and use it to expand and grow rugby from the primary school level from where we can build our structure to the top,” he explained.
The chair added: “I am very excited about the County Associations (as required in the Sports Act) because it now means we can expand the game to the grassroots. Who knows…maybe the different counties can form their own teams and face against other counties.”
KRU are set to embark on a process to amend the constitution in line with the rights of county associations as members of the Union – in line with the stipulations of the Sports Act.
