Kenya finally pays women volleyball players

The Kenyan government has lived up to its promise to pay the national women volleyball team outstanding dues.

The team, which is currently preparing for the upcoming World Championships in Japan received payment late Tuesday following Sports Minister Maina Kamanda's intervention last week.

The cash was presented by the country's Sports Commissioner, Gordon Oluoch, who confirmed that each player was paid upward of 50,000 shillings (about 695 U.S. dollars).

Oluoch said that it was not the responsibility of the government to pay players allowances and asked sports federations to be responsible and support their national teams whenever they go out for competition.

"I want to assure you that the government is fully behind you and we are proud of your achievements that is why we want other corporate sponsors to come aboard because we cannot take over team management," said Oluoch.

"The government is also meeting your expenses here in camp so that you have similar facilities like those you will have in Japan. This is not the end of our relationship, we will remain open to your grievances," he added.

Kenya, regular campaigners in the international championships, have twice represented Africa at the Olympic Games-Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.

On both occasions the east Africans were eliminated in the preliminaries as they proved no match to giants Cuba, China, Brazil and the United States.

Source: Xinhua