Bwalya appointment favours foreign managers over locals

Last July, we parted company with former national team manager, Micho Sredojević amidst the controversy of unpaid dues and poor communication.
It was obvious then, as it is now, that such circumstances wouldn’t endear us to notable future suitors, when the time came.
That time is upon us now and we must convince candidates for the national team job, that we can be counted upon to respect and perform on the contracts we enter and generally be good employers.
To do the convincing, we have put together a team made up of a representative from National Council of Sports (NCS), the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) Technical Director Asuman Lubowa and CEO Edgar Watson.
But by appointing Zambian legend Kalushya Bwalya to head this selection committee, we are saying we don’t trust any of our own for the sanitisation job.
Furthermore, the choice of Bwalya is almost a confession that we favour a foreign manager over a local one. Why? Because Bwalya, for all his stone cast credentials has limited domestic knowledge. What he does have though is continental clout in football circles.
We must therefore hope that our inbox will be bulging with applications from candidates who would want to associate with the kind of clout Kalushya Bwalya carries on the continent. That might be true to an extent, but it also vain that we must turn to a stranger to our game to help identify who must lead it, even if that man is the great Bwalya.
Don’t get me wrong the 1988 African Footballer of the Year seems amiable enough. And he is a true legend of the game, if not for Africa, most definitely for Zambia, who he led both as a player and manager.
But these solid credentials don’t cast him in the role of picking our manager, any more than they would say Ibrahim Sekagya or Jackson Mayanja.
What this tells me is that we are more concerned about reeling in a big name at a time when our reputation as an employer is in tatters. I also think any big name worth their reputation is going to see right through all this drama and this would make the whole exercise futile.
The thing is that while it is a fact that the Micho saga wasn’t flattering at all, it isn’t true that Uganda can only get by with a big name delivered by an image-sanitising celebrity interviewer. If that were the case, what does that say of all those Ugandans, who are more than able to do this? What indeed does it say of Fufa, whose job, amongst others, is to grow local capacity? Is this what represents progress?
If the answer is no or maybe, then we must drop all pretentions and get a purely local committee with solid local knowledge to spear head the process. If that turns off all foreign suitors, so be it. Maybe what we need is someone really interested in the job for what it really is – a local job that requires local know-how.