Over four match days in the ongoing StarTimes Uganda Premier League could be affected by the Uganda Hippos (national U20 Men’s football team) involvement in the All-African Games.
The games will be held between March 7th and 24, 2024 with the Hippos pooled alongside Nigeria, South Sudan, Tunisia and Senegal.
Morley Byekwaso summoned a provisional squad of 39 players with the big chunk selected from the Premier League.
He is expected to name a final squad for the tournament in the next few days and with the team expected to take part in a Four-nation preparation tournament in Ethiopia prior, they could leave even earlier.
Fufa confirmed they will fly to Addis on Wednesday 21 although the squad remains elusive.
SC Villa leads the charts with most players in the provisional squad with 7 players of which four are key first team members – Patrick Kakande, Umar Lutalo, Cyrus Kibande and Abbas Kyeyune are all starters in the Villa team.
Others are fringe – Hakim Mutebi, Delton Oyo and Charles Batiibwe.
KCCA has three – Usama Arafat, Haruna Lukwago and Said Mayanja as well as Wakiso Giants with Titus Ssematimba (currently on loan in UAE), Apollo Kagogwe and Marvin Nyanzi and the same applies to champions Vipers – Rogers Torach, Frank Katongole and Enock Luyima.
The Fufa competitions rules state that if a club has (3) or more players on the national team, the fixtures involving such a team can be called off.
However, a club can ask to have their fixtures played even without their players on the national team.
For now, the postponement will depend on how many players from each club make the final squad but if as observed in the provisional, the fixtures involving SC Villa, Wakiso Giants and KCCA at the moment will be called off.
