Kenya wins football World Cup too!

BERLIN: When France and Italy were fighting it out for the FIFA World Cup, Kenya was enjoying their own cup of glory after winning the first street football world championship in the same city.

Kenya beat South Africa 4-3 in a penalty shootout to walk away with their World Cup trophy in Berlin on Saturday.

The winners received the Copa Andres Escobar, named after the Colombian international who scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup and was murdered on his return home.

A total of 22 teams consisting of youngsters from poor backgrounds played the week-long tournament bringing attention on the game's origins and its power to fight social ills.

Originally 24 teams were to compete but Germany refused visas to Ghana and Nigeria. One of the teams featured a mix of Israelis and Palestinians.

Play opened in a specially constructed stadium for 2,200 spectators in Berlin's ethnically-mixed Kreuzberg district.

The tournament, for players aged 16 to 21, was about "team spirit, global learning, and living without violence. It's all about football as a cultural mediator and a medium for social development," organisers were quoted as saying by German website 'Expatica'.

The winning team from Kenya emerged from the most successful project of its kind in Africa, involving 17,000 youngsters from 16 slum areas, organisers said.

The initiative will also help develop a football culture in Africa as the next FIFA World Cup has been allotted to South Africa.