Magogo sees no reason why Mulindwa should not be happy

What is causing confusion among the football fans and the public in regard to the much talked about Fufa vs. Fufa Ltd issue?

In summary it is a confusion created by the lack of a clear law. We have a very old law – the 1964 National Council of Sports Act. At the time of that law, the situation of football in the whole world was totally different from that of today. Sport then was purely recreational and nobody could have envisaged the situation we are in 50 years ago.

The current law is both obsolete and inadequate because it only talks about the amateur sport; it does not talk about the professional aspect.

Similarly it was put to the discretion of the Minister to draw regulations on the formation of federations but once again over those 50 years, no minister has drawn those regulations. And that is the only area of the Ugandan law which talks about sports federations.

It is the minister supposed to create the regulations but no one has. In such a scenario, football being perhaps the biggest of all sports products got to a situation where it had to exist within the Ugandan law by undertaking business transactions to survive.

For the process of trading to take shape, we as the federation needed to be a legal person. And for that to happen in the Ugandan law, we had to be a body corporate. To be a body corporate, we had to register.
The Lazlo Csaba case where we lost over $200,000 in compensation for unilateral contract termination by Csaba because we cannot sue and be sued as an association was a wake-up call. Ironically Csaba was represented by the same lawyer who advised while contracting him

There are different types of corporations, but the one which suits the Ugandan law and the one which suits affiliation to Fifa is the option we took. So we decided to register a company limited by guarantee and the reasons are that we wanted to sue, be sued, wanted to contract and own assets.
We started owning assets in billions and the assets of members were at risk.

How was the decision passed?
The decision to incorporate was not reached at not by the executive but by the whole members who compose Fufa because it was done at the general assembly. Failure to do it would have been the executive to disrespect a position agreed upon by members. If anybody is to be faulted, it is the members of Fufa.

We didn’t contravene the Ugandan law because the Uganda law provides for entities amongst others limited by guarantee. And when you look at us as a body limited by guarantee, we don’t have shareholders. But there is a perpetual kind of belief that an organization of all Ugandans was taken by individuals and that sounds criminal.

The fact is that Fufa only controls association football which is owned by the members. They are the ones who invest and are the ones who determine their destiny. The general public buys the goods that those members put out there in terms of football. So those who think that football is a natural resource like oil are mistaken. It is not true. Membership to Fufa is voluntary.

It is a product that is prepared by members, and bought by the public. Sometimes people actually think that football is only the national team. The truth is the national team less than 5% of the entire industry of football in the country. There are over 700 football clubs in the country that are privately financed and owned. Billions of shillings are spent by Members of Fufa to present football to the fans.

But the previous Fufa administration of which you were part tended to prioritise Cranes above everything other aspect of football in the country.
I think it was a game plan which we agreed upon in the beginning in 2005 when we came in administration. There were two schools of thought at the time; do we go back and build such that after some years we have a solid foundation? Or do we go to the Africa Cup of Nations the way we are such that that feat allows the administration to settle down and be able to plan.

Because the risk was that if you come in with planning and long term, you were not going to be appreciated. Ugandans have set a benchmark of football performance which to me is qualification to the Africa Cup of Nations. In their eyes, everything else you do you have not achieved and will be branded a failure.

So we though let us answer that question such that we can get enough time to be able to build the structures. That was the approach. Unfortunately we did not make it although we came too close on all occasions. We were always thinking about breaking the duck.

But even then, there were efforts which were done. You can’t say entirely there was nothing. One area I want to confess we didn’t do well is communication. Some of the things we did were not properly positioned and presented to the public. But there were many structural changes that were done.

So what have you done to address the communication lapse of old?
In my administration, I have made it clear that qualification is a bonus. My focus is to regenerate and re-engineer all structures, and I am saying that let me be judged after four years. I don’t want to be judged by qualification or not to the Africa Cup of Nations.

Even if we qualified for 2015, I want to be judged by systems and structures. We are currently laying short, medium and long term strategies where communication is just a subset.

Hon Namirembe Bitamazire stepped in to stop the activities of the regime led by the late Dennis Obua yet she had raised concerns about the same issues being talked about now – Fufa vs Fufa Ltd? What makes this Fufa immune?
The situation is not exactly the same like it was in 2005. Some of the complainants nine years ago were members of Fufa. As we speak today, there is no Fufa member complaining because we agreed upon it at the annual general meeting.

Secondly, assets of the members in 2005 were at risk. You remember the Fufa house had been mortgaged. It is not exactly the same situation.
Thirdly even Fifa weren’t happy with the way things were running. Fifa weren’t happy with the constitution. The world governing body had issues with the administration of the time.

So when you sum up all that as well as the feeling of the general public, there was unanimous discontent. However you need to read the letter written by Hon. Bitamazire.

The letter did not disband Fufa. The letter suspended elections. It is in writing. The letter suspended the executive and the reasons were spelt out clearly. One was forming a company limited which is not allowed in accordance with the act and regulation. The letter was basing its authority on regulations that do not exist. The other reason was maladministration of Fufa, which I don’t think is the situation today.

And that letter went ahead and gave responsibility to the members of Fufa to determine their destiny. So this case, if it is the members of Fufa who decided, are you going to disband membership? Is Fifa happy with the decision being fronted?

Supposing the Member of Fufa say no to the decisions, will anyone force them to continue privately financing the 700 clubs and schools? If we must, can we not do it differently without causing mayhem?

Talk about the reasons behind the resignation of spokesperson Rogers Mulindwa.
When change comes, it affects some people. When we re-did the statutes, many areas were affected including the presidency. There were a lot of powers that the President held in previous years compared to now. He could hire, reshuffle and fire the executive for example.

The delegates were also affected. They were 180 and became 86. The executive was 20. It is down to 13. In short, so many people got affected. The constitution was basically trying to create firm structures and independence of the organs.

The moment you were a member of the executive you could not be a member of the general assembly. Before, we could vote at the general assembly as members of the executive.

Rogers was thus affected. When Mr Mulindwa (Lawrence) was still president, Rogers could be a delegate, a spokesperson and an executive member but the statutes allowed it then.

Today, expatriates are being fronted at the secretariat with the executive going into a board role.
I don’t know if people have noticed that Haruna Mawanda was the last general secretary (GS) to be elected.

Fifa are moving us into a new direction. Today we have a Chief Executive officer instead of an elected GS. We used to have a vice president technical, now we have a Technical director.

We have been having vice president finance, now we have a Finance Director. Marketing Committee is being replaced with Marketing and Communications Director.

Rogers I believe was affected by these changes. The CEO wrote a letter and asked all members of the executive to resign their positions as delegates to create a vacuum for new faces.

Rogers was required to resign as a spokesperson or as a delegate. I think he might have preferred to remain a delegate therefore he opted to resign as a spokesperson. Maybe he wanted to do it in style but that was the destiny anyway.

How about the allegations of the Shs200m annual commission to your name he cited?
That is not true. There are two sides of football; there is football politics and football development. Over the last 20 years we have always done football politics largely at the expense of football development.
I want to concentrate on football development in my term.

Most of the statements made by Rogers were political statements.
They are false. They can be crosschecked with. Anybody can crosscheck them.
There is a logical conclusion to those allegations.
If the Fufa house floor was left to the presidency, it is a simple thing – you can walk there and find out.

If Fufa cars were sold as he claims, you can walk there at Mengo and find out.
Likewise, there was nothing like the commission. There was no way the president was involved in taking away the federation’s resources. What we have done is bring in more resources than before. We should be thanked rather than castigated.

Whereas we were having Shs300m sponsorship for the Cranes, today we are having over Shs800m in one year with more resources for the Fufa Big League and Uganda Cup form the same sponsorship. That is supposed to be a credit.
But we decided to ignore Rogers’ allegations since they were not true and we do audited books of accounts that are presented for our members at the general assembly and any member is free to crosscheck.

We put in place a policy to say whoever brings in sponsorship as an agency; we don’t go beyond 20% as commission.

Many organisations including media houses give commissions to whoever brings in money – it is a standard practice all over the world.
And we went public about it because we want to encourage whoever wants to do business with us to do so.

However the members of the executive, the member of the secretariat and members of the committee and president are not entitled to that kind of advantage. Because that is our role, we can’t earn from the role we are supposed to be playing anyway.

It is not true that there is any member of the executive, committee or President who earned from the deal. And we shall continue with that policy because it looks like it can bring in more revenue for us.

It is a public secret that in a very short time you have apparently turned from being the blue-eyed boy of Lawrence Mulindwa to a foe and currently it is alleged you don’t see eye to eye. Is there any truth to this?
I can’t say that is true because the last time we spoke with Lawrence, we were planning a meeting.

He was travelling and incidentally I was also travelling. That was sometime in December towards Christmas.
When he came back, I was also travelling to South Africa. When I came back, we have both been busy with our respective duties.

And I must say it is not the longest time I have spent without talking to Lawrence. Even when I was his vice president, there were moments when we would go for so long without talking.
For me it is not a new thing.
However I don’t see a situation why Lawrence should be unhappy. I have not received anything from his side to imply he is not happy. Not being able to communicate with him because of our different schedules can’t make me conclude that he is not happy.

It must also be noted that as the federation, we wrote to him in his capacity as the former head and honorary president and asked to meet in a formal meeting such that should there be any issues, let’s hear from him.

And there were also other issues we wanted to consult with the normal operations. On some issues, we felt he had the information to help football. And he has since responded that we shall meet at the appropriate time, so we are still waiting for that appropriate time to come.
If he has anything not happy about, I’m sure he will bring it out.

If it is true he is unhappy, could it have anything to do with the fact that you are willing to negotiate with the USL leadership of Kavuma Kabenge?
People must realize that I have never stopped talking to Kabenge. Even when I was under Lawrence Mulindwa as vice president, I spoke to Kabenge. We were always speaking.
We may disagree with people on principle but not necessarily in personality. I am a student of that.

What must be remembered is that in my manifesto, I stressed that it is time for everybody to contribute to the game. Whoever thinks he can add value to the game, the door is open. I have said that so many times.
I said it when I was standing and even at that time, Lawrence was still the president.
For us to speak doesn’t mean we are going away from the principles. If we speak to Kabenge and he buys into our principles, what is wrong with that for the game?
Under Lawrence, we spoke to people with whom we had a variance in thinking. Remember we had issues with a person like Mujib (Kasule).
If we buy into your philosophy of building football, I don’t mind your history. We have all made mistakes before in our lives. The game needs the future more than the history right now.

Even in religion, you preach for people to get converted. You don’t preach to bishops only. If you do, you are not doing your job right.

Has there been a fall-out between you and Mujib Kasule?
I think it has been a creation. Like I said, I disagree with people in principle and not in personality.
It is a public secret we disagreed with Mujib, then. But I was one person who was quick to bring him into the federation and I don’t think there is anybody he has closest in the federation than me.
There is no fallout. It has been a creation. We work off very well.

Do you think it was right for the Cranes coach Micho Sredojevic and Mujib as your vice to accompany Sports Club Victoria University to Lubumbashi for their match against Don Bosco?
I have asked that question and I am waiting for a report from the technical people. But I will tell you that I don’t find a problem with the national team coach watching any game that is involving Ugandan players.
I also don’t find it wrong with a member of the executive travelling to watch one of our teams. I did it with KCC in 2009 when they played SuperSport in South Africa, and I was an executive member.
I am told Micho also spoke with KCC FC technical team providing his mind about the game with El Merriekh and it is up to the KCC FC Technical to take it or leave it.

Who travelled with KCC to El Merriekh?
It was Richard Ochom, a member of the executive for North East region. I don’t find anything wrong with them travelling.
What I would find odd is the national team coach being involved in the training of the club.
But if it is sitting down and discussing strategy with local coaches, it is standard practice in Europe and everywhere else.

Are you satisfied with your administration in the first five months and what would you rank your highlights?
First I have found some people with a similar line of thinking who want to positively impact on the game. And we welcome more of them.
Secondly, we have been able to meet all our financial obligations. We haven’t failed to do anything we have to, apart from the women’s team whose withdrawal was owed more to strategy as opposed to finances.

We have handled some outstanding obligations we found when we took over. The airtel sponsorship has been a big plus certainly and we are hopeful of many more.

And I must tell you there is some very big news coming in a few days from Fifa. At the right moment, that will be mentioned. This will be an achievement too.

And your most trying moment or issue in the same period?
The shift from the last presidency to the new type of presidency has been a challenge.

In the last one, we could get any credit because the justification was that FUFA was in fine financial hands. When we came in, there was a lot of doubt and suspicion.
There was widespread doubt from our partners, players, referees and so forth naturally to accept my presidency.
But thank God we have navigated that bit. We are actually earning a lot of trust from many of our providers and partners, the members, players and referees confidence by fulfilling our promises.

You have surely heard talk that Lawrence Mulindwa was a wealthy man who could effectively run the game as opposed to Moses Magogo who couldn’t match his financial muscle….

That is true it has been said. And sincerely speaking I was very close to Mulindwa and I know how much he was spending. You can’t take it away from him; he has passion for the game and that is a credit.

However football can’t be financed by an individual. I don’t mean to run down Mulindwa’s football achievements and what he has done.
He continues to do it at Vipers and at his school, all of which are contributions to the game.

But that model is not sustainable and up to now, no one knows why he left.
You end up losing very good administrators like him, like (Hajji Omar) Mandela, like (Godfrey) Kirumira because of the view that one person should dip in his pocket to run the game.

We are running a product that can make its own money.
One league game between Yanga and Simba in Tanzania fetches money more than what was in the sponsorship of SuperSport and USL for two years.

Some of these rich men have been forced to run away because of that mentality of expecting individuals to run the show with their coffers.
We don’t want out game to be a burden.

What is your ultimate goal?
My goal both as Fufa and the President is to make structures that can turn our game around. Judge me after four years and not by qualification to Afcon but by systems, structures, strategies and general direction of the game.