I have always considered Lawrence Mulindwa’s tenure as FUFA President a total waste. For eight years that he made everyone believe that qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations was the only way Ugandan football would ever get better. Eight years, masquerading to have all the structures in place yet in the actual sense those structures were being abused. Talk of having 30+ year old players turning out for the U17s in a Regional tournament.
Its no wonder CAF banned Uganda for two years for using over-age players in a youth encounter against Zambia. While all that was going on, competition-wise, Mulindwa was promoting Moses Magogo from head of competitions to Vice President (Administration) and it didn’t take Magogo long to take over the reigns from Mulindwa as FUFA president. At this point one would have thought that Magogo would learn from the mistakes of his predecessors even though he was party to many of them.
After one year in office, everyone thought Magogo would try to build what he and Mulindwa spent years dismantling. And the league comes to mind at this point. Qualification for major tournaments will continue to be a dream if we can’t have a strong competitive organized league. Especially at this point when Uganda is struggling to have players play in serious football leagues.
Questions rise about how countries like Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal do it with the majority of their players playing overseas. Surely all those Africans didn’t start their football careers in Europe; they started from home and eventually made it.
If Magogo put all his concentration on the league, youth structures, working with all the stakeholders concerned surely the talent we have can’t fail to break into European leagues.
South Africa proved that a decent competitive league and genuine structures can take you places. South Africa qualified for AFCON 2015 with mostly local based players at the expense of 2013 winners, Nigeria who had a number of foreign based players donning the green and white.
The Kenyan Premier League (KPL) today, is on TV and not just any other TV but SuperSport (the biggest sports broadcasters on the continent). Not because they have the talent, but because they know how much value, publicity and marketing that TV does to the developing of their game. Actually Ugandans are lighting up to the KPL more than to the local league.
What did Mulindwa and Magogo do to SuperSport? They made sure it ceases to operate in Uganda. Why? They didn’t agree with Kavuma Kabenge and the way he was operating. What is Magogo doing now? Trying to bring Kabenge back on board at all costs. Why? A lot of money is involved and they can’t look on as it goes without being wasted positively or negatively.
This is where greed comes into play, Mulindwa and his Vipers are saying No to SuperSport because the distribution of the sponsorship or broadcasting package is not clear. And they have the backing of Sports Club Victoria University. Magogo threatened to expel those two from the league by December 4 if they didn’t comply. On December 5 they were playing against each other in the same league down in Buikwe were Vipers edged SCVU 1-0.
Do Magogo and Mulindwa know that clubs are still struggling to pay players’ wages, players train and play league games on empty stomachs, other teams no longer train and only meet for league matches? Maybe they do but they would rather satisfy their own selfish interests than see Uganda’s Football take the right path. ITS NOT JUST ABOUT CRANES! HOPE ONE DAY THEY WILL GET THAT INTO THEIR MINDS!
