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Mariga, from Champions League to Kenya politics

Former Inter player runs for MP in Kibera, Nairobi

23-10-2019 by Freddie del Curatolo

Using the popularity of the football champion to try to climb to the top of politics or at least to bring votes to the current or party to which you have chosen to belong.
In Africa it is much more than a suggestion, if you think that recently the former Liberian centerman of Milan George "Giorgione" Weah was even elected President of the Republic in his Liberia.
Until now, in Kenya, home to great athletes, especially runners of the middle distance and marathon, no one had yet dared to turn their sports pedigree into electoral propaganda. 
The most decorated and famous former Kenyan player, McDonald Mariga, took care of it.
The career of the midfielder, now 32 years old (at the registry office that we are used to see how he betrays on average a couple of years) took place mainly in Europe, after graduating from high school Kamukunji, known for being a real hotbed of talent, the so-called "Golden Boys". Like some fellow countrymen, Mariga arrives in the cold Sweden when she reaches the age of majority and from the third series, burning the stages, she arrives at one of the most prestigious clubs in the Scandinavian nation, the Helsinborgs. 
He is noticed by Parma that buys him after a year of loan and throws him in the Olympus of the series A. The experienced lobsters of the peninsula took little to pass from the smiles for that name from "fast food" and its gazelle race, to the surprise for its flexibility and ballistic skills. 
The qualities of defensive median who knows how to fit into the goal zone also excite Inter who buys it in the years that will lead the Milanese Nerazzurri to win the Scudetto and play the Champions League with the "Special One" Mourinho. With the Portuguese coach Mariga he won the so-called "Triplete" (Scudetto, Coppa Italia and Champions League) and the World Cup for clubs, becoming the first Kenyan footballer to win the two highest international competitions.
From then on a series of injuries condition his career, which will continue in Parma, Spain and in Serie B in Latina, until the last attempt, last year, with the Cuneo in Serie D. Testimonial of advertising campaigns in Kenya and entrepreneur in Milan, now Mariga goes for the first time in another field, that of the slum of Kibera, trying to win over other crowds and especially the seat of parliamentarian remained vacant after the premature death of politician Ken Okoth, wiped out in a few months by cancer (not episodic fact of these times in Kenyan high society). Mariga was nominated by President Kenyatta's party, Jubilee Party, and after appeals and attempts at delegitimization, in recent days she began a series of rallies in the great slum of Nairobi, promising schools, hospitals and some goals that are not just words against poverty.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

TAGS: politica kenyacalcio kenyasport kenyakibera kenyamariga kenya

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