New world football amputee to spearhead growth of game in Africa

A Kenyan who was recently elected secretary general of the World Amputee Football Federation said on Monday he will oversee the spread of the game in Africa.

Steve Muli, who was elected last December as secretary general of the federation during the World Amputee World Cup held in Culiacan, Mexico told Xinhua in Nairobi that he will use his new position as a vehicle to promote the sport in Africa, which he described as a region where the sport was extremely under- developed.

"Only eight countries in Africa have been participating in amputee football for the last 15 years. The growth has been slow but the task of structuring the game in the continent is surmountable," Muli told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

"My vision is to promote the sport in the region starting with Kenya, where it has been in existence for less than a decade," said Muli, who is also the President of Kenya Amputee Football Federation.

Muli was nominated by Kenya and elected SG of the federation after he garnered over 90 percent of the total votes cast during an election that pitted him against candidates from Russia, Ghana and Liberia.

"I will form the Africa Amputee Federation and use it as a springboard to make the sport popular like it is in Europe and the Americas. In Africa, amputee football is most developed in Angola," Muli, whose tenure will run for four years, said.

He is charged with running the day-to-day operations of the world body and overseeing the permanent staff of the federation in addition to handling the correspondences of the federation globally. Endite