Road to Anfield five-a-side pools released

This year’s edition of the ‘Road To Anfield’ five-a-side tourney is set to kick off on 2nd March after the organizers released the fixtures on Wednesday at St Mary’s grounds.

The annual event will see winners bag the Standard Chartered Trophy gain direct qualification to the international round in Liverpool, to be played at Liverpool FC’s home ground Anfield, in May 2019.

The Head of Sponsorship at Standard Chartered Bank, Mr. Dennis Sitieney, said that the bank targets to host 51 teams comprising of Standard Chartered clients and Media partners who will battle for the single slot to represent Kenya in the finals.

“At stake is a fully paid-up trip to Anfield, the home of Premier League giants Liverpool FC. The winners will travel to the UK for a fully paid 4-day trip to represent Kenya at the Standard Chartered Trophy Finals, which will be played at Anfield. In addition, the winning team will attend an English Premier League match at Anfield and will benefit from a professional training session with Liverpool FC legends and coaches to help prepare for the final tournament,” Mr. Sitieney said announcing when announcing the fixtures of the tournament.

In the 2016 edition, Kenya’s representatives, Capital FM’s The Best of Music Team, won the international trophy to become the only African team to ever win it. They also won the Kenyan trophy in the following year but unfortunately failed to win it at the global level. Last year, Kenyan representatives Wananchi Group were knocked out in the quarterfinals of the tournament at Anfield after losing by two goals to one to Hong Kong.

Mr Setieney also noted that the tournament is growing over the years as more corporates eye an opportunity to visit Anfield, the home stadium of English Premier Giants, Liverpool FC.
’The tournament has continued to grow in popularity as more corporates eye an opportunity to travel to Anfield making it very competitive. Last year we hosted 48 teams. This year we will be hosting 51 teams both from our clients and media partners. The continued interest has been instrumental in improving standards of the tournament,” he added.

Through this partnership, the Bank has rolled out several brand awareness activities across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In Kenya, the first 5 aside football tournament -The Road to Anfield- was launched in 2013 to celebrate the sponsorship of Liverpool Football Club and give a once in a lifetime experience to clients and media partners.

Here are the pools for the tournament.
Pool A: Nation Media Group, Deloitte, Vivo Energy, BAT, Sanlam, Total Kenya, Davis and Shirtliff,

Pool B: Standard Group, Getrudes Hospital, Scan Group, Gulf Energy, Uniliver, ICPAK, JH Piego Corporation

Pool C: Royal media Services, MP Shar Hospital, Bamburi Cement, Kenya Nut, USIU, Sanoti Aventies, Safaricom

Pool D: Radio Africa, AC Nelson, Resolution health, Blids Gulf, Jubilee Insurance, Catholic Relief Services

Pool E: Capital FM, Madison Insurance, Simba Corporation, Metropolitan Canon, Zamara Actiaries, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Pool F: Mediamax, EABL, AIG Kenya, Letshego, Nokia, Galana

Read: The assets that Kenyans treasure most

Pool G: Oil Libya, Copy Cat, Team Britam, Borrolle Cheeters, APHRC, General Electric

Pool H: Sama Source Kenya, Diagio, MFI, NAS Airport, Schneider Electric, Multichoice