Dola to help scout, nurture football talent at the Coast

Dola Group of Companies director and other stakeholders at the launch if the Sisi ni Dola Cup at the Mombasa Sports Club on October 3, 2025 / BRIAN OTIENO

Dola Group of Companies has come up with an initiative that will see talented footballers be scouted and nurtured in a professional manner.

The Group on Sunday said sports is big business and football can change the economy of a country if well managed.

The Friday launch of the Sisi Ni Dola Cup at the Mombasa Sports Club, which saw it replace the Taifa Ni Ngano Super Cup, for the next three years is the beginning of the new journey.

Mohamed Ahmed alias Madiginho, the long-serving Mombasa Sports Club captain, said the one-month tournament will have scouts at all the games taking notes and trying to find the next big talents from Mombasa.

“We have 20 teams from Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale counties that will be battling for the top prize of Sh500,000. The final will be played on November 9.

“Come out and watch our young people play football so as to avoid being in situations that will end up in jail, the grave or hospital bed,” he said.

Mombasa Sports Club sports chair Coach Rajab Babu said there has been a challenge in Kenya and in Africa as a whole when it comes to youth development.

He said football development is a step by step process that needs to be invested in.

“Going forward, we want to ask ourselves, what are we going to see out of this tournament? We want something tangible. We don’t want the prizes because at the end of the day, what will happen to our youth? Let us look at the future,” Coach Babu said.

He said in their heydays they used to play at branded tournaments and go to Nairobi but after that, nothing tangible happened.

“Talents used to go back to the grassroots and rot there because there were no proper structures to develop them,” he said.

He said the best way to start nurturing talents us at the Under 16 level.

“Out of that U-16 tournament we pick a team where the federation maps the players and have them play regularly with any team that comes with their U-16 players,” the Brazil-trained coach said.

He said there should be continuity and values, which are tangible, so that after 20 years of the tournaments, there is something that can be seen to have worked out well for the players, the teams, the federation and the country at large.

“The biggest problem we have, even when you look at our national team Harambee Stars, is you see player just come from nowhere. There is no development and no mapping of players,” he said.

“If you go to Uganda today and ask for players from U-16, U-15, U-20, U-18, whatever category you want, they know where these players are because they have mapped them out and are monitoring them. Is that so hard for us to do here?” Coach Babu said.

He said as one of the most learned coaches in Kenya, if you ask him to name the players at Harambee Stars, it is unfortunate that he does not know some of them because there is no tracking system for them.

The first law of the game is the field of play, Coach Babu said, but it is disappointing that Mombasa has no football stadium yet it is the second city in Kenya.

“Why is the second biggest city in the country lacking a football stadium? We cannot develop football if we shy away from speaking the truth. We need to have a FIFA standard stadium in Mombasa.

“We used to produce half of the players in the Harambee Stars but today, we cannot produce even three at a go,” the coach said.

He called on Dola Group to stay strong and be passionate about football so as to attract other investors in the game.

Football Kenya Federation Mombasa branch chair Alamin Abdalla said he is positive the changes in football will see young talents scouted and nurtured into professionals.

“FKF was in ICU with the last regime. We have now removed it from the ICU and is in the normal ward now. Soon, we will see an even bigger step forward,” he said.

He said the Dola Group of Companies has invested in football because they see light at the end of the tunnel.

He said by nature Coast people love football and it is prudent to tap into that passion as Sisi Ni Dola is doing.

“The government, which is now on board, should consider investing more in youth development because I am sure with proper structures, these youth will earn good money from their talents and crime will reduce thus necessitating a reduction in the budget spent on security,” Abdalla said.

Hassan “Kipapa” Ibrahim, the Director of Sports at Dola Group, emphasized that the tournament is more than just a competition.

“It's a platform to unearth and nurture grassroots talent. As leaders, we must identify and nurture talent. But we must also teach young players the importance of balancing talent with education,” Kipapa said.

He lamented that most of the talents in Mombasa and at the Coast are usually not good in education.

He said the Sisi Ni Dola Cup is different from their initial Dola Super Cup tournament in that this will be happening in Mombasa alone while the other happened in all the six counties of the Coast region.

“We are trying to get into a system where we will be monitoring talents and helping in nurturing them as we develop football talent not only in Mombasa but across the Coast region.

“We’re doing things differently this time, and I’m confident many of our players will get scouted by top clubs after the tournament,” he said.