Do not be fooled by praise of the U-23 win

The Uganda U23 team went to Nairobi and not even a storm induced 24 hour postponement could save their hosts from a 1-5 mauling. Almost immediately afterwards half of that U23 team went down south to Dar-e-salaam and opened Bunamwaya’s CECAFA account with a 4-0 demolition of Elman FC.

Now Uganda is the envy of the region. Apparently our football is on the up thanks to a string of positive results in comparison to our neighbours none of whom by the way stand a decent chance of qualifying for the AFCON show piece in January 2012, the yard stick by which the African nations measure footballing success.

You will be forgiven for thinking that these are the best days of our football, especially if you consider that all of this arrives a few weeks after the senior team literally put one foot into the AFCON 2012 having clobbered Equatorial Guinea to remain top of qualifying Group J.

In fact, reports coming in from Nairobi say that a full scale riot brewing within the football fraternity was only halted after people were asked to calm down and follow the example of Uganda, which is building from the basics! Now if anyone was to tell me today that our football is on the up due to building from the basics I would take it with a serious pinch of salt!

I attribute the recent good results not to a deliberate effort but to a combination of random factors like a decent head coach, a senior team of professionals who have played together and know each other well for a while now, fielding of overage players in underage tournaments, and the overall mediocrity of our neighbours.

I shall be the first person to put up my hand and admit that the running of the game has improved from the days when our national team wore Inter Milan replica jerseys and socks of varying shades of colour. I do also applaud the administration for wooing the MTNs and the Supersports of this world and above all for recruiting in Bobby Williamson, a man I believe possesses a good understanding on how to instruct a group of men on how to win a game.

But I would also be the first to person to point out that no egos are big enough to grow anything let alone the game of football. Unfortunately this is what I see when I look at the impasse between USL and FUFA over the matter of promotion to next years’ Super League. No matter how much the instinct of selfish interests threaten to sway me this is what I see when we field 30 year olds in an U23 tournament.

We might be marching on to Gambia and Mozambique. But let no one be fooled by the victories over Equatorial Guinea, the Kenya U23 and the praise of our desperate neighbours. To do so would be to ignore the cracks created by the constant bickering and the quest for instant gratification of our leaders.

FUFA, USL and whoever is responsible for running football in this nation should understand that we are not interested in knowing who is legally authorised to promote teams or sign TV deals. All we need is that they establish the means that build and run our game with such clarity that simple matters like actually having 20 year olds to field in an U23 tournaments are taken care of.

We can only consolidate on our small victories if we focus more on how to run our game and not who owns the power to run the game.

M.Banturaki@ug.motocare.com