The loan transfer will be completed on April 1 when the youngster will be done with his final high school examinations
Gor Mahia striker Benson Omala has joined Swedish Division One side FC Linkoping City on loan from the Football Kenya Federation Premier League heavyweights.
The move, which will last from April 1 to December 1, is set to be officially completed when the centre-forward will clear his final high school examinations in March.
“Let Omala go and develop in Sweden,” Gor Mahia Chief Executive Officer Omondi Aduda told Goal. “He has made the move on a season free loan and that is the agreement between Gor Mahia and Linkoping City. The deal was completed here in Kenya as the officials from the team came to finalise everything in the country.”
Since joining Gor Mahia, the former Western Stima striker has not enjoyed regular playtime with the giants. The arrival of Jules Ulimwengu and Tito Okello, with whom they were signed in the same transfer window, saw him relegated to the bench most of the time.
There was also stiff competition from Nicholas Kipkirui who has left the club for the Nakuru-based Premier League side Ulinzi Stars.
Recently, the goalscoring responsibility has been handed to either Wilson Silva, the newly signed centre-forward for the Green Army or Ulimwengu with Okello enjoying more minutes as a substitute.
Although minutes have been limited at club level, Omala has always been called to the national side. He was also summoned for the friendlies against South Sudan and Tanzania but school duties rule him out entirely.
Omala made his name at Western Stima before he attracted interest from Gor Mahia. The youngster earned his debut in the Premier League against KCB and scored his first top-tier goal.
His form saw him included in the Rising Stars squad that featured in the Cecafa U20 championship in Kampala, Uganda in 2019 and he went on to score on two occasions.
While serving the Powermen, he registered his first hat-trick against Zoo FC, a game they won 4-1 in December 2019 and became the first Western Stima player to do so. His performance saw him nominated as the player of the month of December by the Sports Journalists Association of Kenya (SJAK) as he made another career milestone.
By winning the award then, he broke a six-year record by becoming the third Western Stima player to lift the award. Wesley Kemboi and Kenneth Muguna were the other players who won the award before Omala.
The starlet first came into the public limelight during the Chapa Dimba tournament where he emerged as the top scorer of the Nyanza region in the competition.
Linkoping City was founded after a merger between FK Linkoping and Syrianska in 2013.