Vihiga County teams have been advised to seek their own money to fund their activities and stop relying on the county allocation only.
The clubs were told the little resources they received from the county through the Sports Fund were only meant to support their continuity.
Vihiga County sports chief officer, Sylvester Kaane said: “What we have might not be enough for all teams and that is why we have measures in place to ensure we select the teams for the funds,” Kaane said.
Kaane was speaking after releasing Sh. 3.5 million to the teams through the Sports Fund kitty that was established under the Vihiga Sports Management Act of 2019.
The amount was dished out to 13 sporting teams from the devolved unit after meeting the qualifications.
“The Sh3.5m we are giving out is only meant to cushionn the teams because we know the budget for some teams is beyond Sh6 million per season,” he added.
Kaane said Vihiga County is committed to supporting youth and sports in Vihiga— a move that has ignited several success stories.
“As a county, we have and shall continue nurturing talents among our youth across the board,” Kaane said.
He further noted that Vihiga is the only county with a fully functioning Sports Act that has established a Sports Management Committee that supports sports teams. Teams that received funding from the 2023/2024 Financial Year allocation include; Vihiga Queens (Sh550,000), Bunyore Starlets (Sh 550,000) and Luanda Villa (Sh500,000).
Others are Vihiga Granites RFC (Sh250,000), Mbale RFC (Sh250,000), Vihiga Volleyball Women’s team (Sh250,000)
Vihiga volleyball men’s team (Sh250,000), Vihiga executive netball club (Sh200,000) Vihiga netball club (Sh200,000) Vihiga Western Spears (Sh150,000) and Vihiga ParaVolley (Sh150,000), Vihiga Boxing Association (Sh100,000) and Vihiga Athletics (Sh100,000).
During the cheque handover to teams, Vihiga County Governor Wilber Ottichillo urged youths to venture into life-long economic activities such as agri-business as alternative sources of income. “Our young boys and girls can’t be in the playground for the rest of their lives and thus I advise them to also venture into other financial generation activities,” Ottichilo said
Kaane encouraged the teams' officials to explore other sustainability measures, citing budget constraints as one of the challenges associated with government finances.
"As team officials, you need to explore other financial avenues to sustain the teams' budget during the season to evade financial crisis," Kane said.
Madira Soccer Assassin did not get a share of the funding after failing to meet the threshold as per Sports Fund Act of 2019.
