For starters, Bobby Williamson replaced Hungarian, Laszlo Csaba at the helm of the Uganda Cranes in 2008. Since then, he has been in charge of the Cranes for 66 games including the Sunday March 24 loss to Liberia. Under his reign, Uganda has won 34 games, lost 14 and drawn 18. The Cranes have scored 105 goals and conceded 52 in the process.
On paper, these are good statistics since he accounts 51.2% winning rate of all games he has been in charge. However, this is attributed to Cecafa Tusker Cup competitions which Uganda Cranes has won four times in the last five years.
Bar Cecafa, in 15 Africa Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers, he has won 6, drawn 4 and lost 5. In five away Afcon qualifiers, he has won one – the 1-0 over Guinea-Bissau in March 2011 in which David Obua netted the solitary winner. These are poor statistics given he was amongst many targets, meant to improve Uganda‘s poor away record.
Forget about winning the CECAFA in Tanzania and Kenya which Williamson keeps boosting of as winning away. With a rosy record of 23 wins, 6 draws and one loss in 30 Cecafa games, Williamson has been crowned ‘King’ of the Cecafa region. But the 76.7% Cecafa success that has seen Cranes win three titles in four attempts isn’t the only thing that Ugandans need but an improvement on the 40% in AFCON and World Cup qualifiers. When Williamson was signed, he was tasked with ensuring the Cranes qualify for the finals of the Africa Nations Cup but he has seen three campaigns end in tears.
Besides statistics, Williamson recently applied for the Kenyan top job to Coach the Harambe Stars. Though he still denies, the Federation of Kenya Football (FKF) confirmed it by short listing him on the final four man list though he lost to Adel Amrouche.
In addition, it’s surprising that Coach Bobby Williamson is party to the technical team that summons Cranes players without following their activities at respective clubs. Prior to the Liberian game, the Scot confessed that he summoned Tony Mawejje since he thought he was active with his club. He blamed poor communication between him and some players for failure to monitor them in their clubs. Can you imagine? Perhaps it’s the reason 50% of the summoned players for the Liberian games were inactive either due to lack of first team football at their clubs or being without clubs.
Without any sentiments, do you feel Williamson is still the right man for the Ugandan job or FUFA should get rid of him?
