LG inks new one year deal with SJAK for monthly award

LG Electronics (LG) East Africa Monday announced a new one-year sponsorship for the prestigious Sports Personality of the Month Award (SPOM) covering the period January to December, 2024.

SPOM seeks to celebrate and reward sports men and women who have excelled across various disciplines.

This is the ninth year running that the electronics manufacturing company has partnered with the Sports Journalists Association of Kenya (SJAK), the association that runs the monthly award.

During the official signing of the  contract at their offices on Monday, LG’s Managing Director for East Africa, Dong Won Lee, underscored the objective of the partnership, which he noted, “has contributed to the growth of sport across the country.”

Winners of the monthly awards will take home a variety of LG home appliances and entertainment systems, including washing machines, refrigerators, state-of-the-art televisions, and many more, Lee revealed.

As part of the deal, LG Electronics will also run sports-related Community Social Responsibility (CSR) programs.

“This year, we find it wise to expand this support of our heroes to communities and institutions of learning as a way of supporting and inspiring upcoming sports giants across diverse disciplines. We are, therefore, investing Sh3.5 million and banking on SJAK’s support to drive our objective of supporting the growth of local sports. 

"LG's long-standing partnership with SJAK started in 2015 with the now defunct Kenya Premier League Footballer of Month Awards”.

SJAK President, James Waindi, on his part, said: “We are always grateful to partner with LG in rewarding top-tier sports personalities over the last nine years. Within this period, we have managed to reward many trailblazing athletes, among them Angella Okutoyi who went on to become the first Kenyan grand slam winner, and rewarded several other athletes in little-known sports.

“As we renew this long-standing partnership, we are determined to not only promote talent across all media platforms, but also make sports more appealing to current and budding players across the
country. This is as sport continues to be an essential vehicle for socio-economic transformation.”

Since the introduction of the award, the SPOM has awarded Kenya's trailblazing athletes and emerging stars like Aldrine Kibet, who went on to join the Nastic Academy in Spain after being spotted in the 2023 Secondary School Games in Kakamega, where his double helped his St Anthony Boys Kitale school defeat Dagoretti High School in the finals.

Also recognized is the trailblazing Junior World Rally Championship star McRae Kimathi, who became the first ever Kenyan to finish a rally on snow and ice during the 2022 WRC race in Sweden.

McRae's towering performance saw him finish the 2022 WRC3 category in an incredible third position, and fourth in the overall Junior WRC.

"Many of the LG sports personality award recipients have gone on to conquer the world. A good example is the late Kevin Kiptum, whom we awarded in April last year, and he later broke Eliud Kipchoge's record. Eliud also shattered the world marathon record after receiving this award," Lee said.

Other winners include Africa's fastest Man Ferdinand Omanyala, African rally champion Karan Patel, marathoner Hellen Obiri, basketballer Tylor Ongwae Okari, Olympic marathon champion Peres
Jepchirchir, Hit Squad national team boxer Elly Ajowi, United States women's basketball star Reynolds Victoria, and star athlete Beatrice Chebet.

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