Onyebuchi injury a wake up call for league football

Same Old Story. Onyebuchi’s injury has opened a new chapter in how the league is ill-equipped in handling football’s extreme medical cases. PHOTO BY I. KEZAALA

The day it happened, elsewhere.
The Express-Proline game played on March 9 is renowned for having failed to end because of crowd trouble at Wankulukuku stadium.
The biggest story of that game was not that Express would later lose three points and three goals to Proline.
It was the nasty career-threatening injury suffered by Express defender Vincent Onyebuchi in the 48thminute.
There was inadequate first aid treatment for the Nigerian with no equipped paramedics in the sight.
Four months later, Onyebuchi’s condition has grown into a national concern with stakeholders, fans and well-wishers joining hands to raise funds for treatment of the player.
Express chairperson Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi has suffered the brunt of public ridicule after being quoted as having made remarks that suggested the club had had enough with Onyebuchi’s treatment and were going to move on. I will not focus on the injury of Onyebuchi in isolation and I can only hope the player’s recovery goes according to plan.
What happened to him on that fateful day could have happened to any of the other 400 Uganda Premier League players.

No relevance
Which is why lamenting about Onyebuchi’s unfortunate condition today is an exercise of no relevance.
Now is the time to brainstorm on how to handle the recurrence of a similar conundrum.
Football is a contact sport and whether we like it or not, leg breaks will happen every once in a while.
So it is only right to prioritise solutions to the most extreme injuries.
It is of little consequence spending productive hours in politicking; the issues that must be addressed are of Onyebuchi’s nature.
As we do know very well, very few clubs pay. The ones that pay do not necessarily pay very well.
On the whole clubs in the Azam Uganda Premier League give their footballers peanuts.
This I hasten to add is not a criticism of the clubs for there are no revenue avenues worth writing home about for the teams.
This is a league of amateurs, we mustn’t forget.
For Onyebuchi, you could make the case that he was a tad lucky to suffer injury at Wankulukuku which is a stone throw away from the centre of the capital city.
What would have happened if he was a lower division player featuring for his team, say Kataka FC, in the first round of the Uganda Cup in Mbale?
At least Onyebuchi can be thankful that Express for all its ailing fortunes remains a traditional giant and as such his unfortunate condition was always bound to tickle football’s power brokers.

Proper planning
Would an injured JMC Hippos player elicit similar sympathy?
Ahead of every season, focus tends to be on new recruits and an insatiable appetite for football after the boredom of pre-season.
The last thing on the mind of a club chief is how to deal with a crisis of Onyebuchi’s nature.
That must change. In the midst of the undivided attention towards the planning of the club’s upcoming calendar year should be a thought or two on how equipped the club is medically.
If we cannot stop Onyebuchi-type injuries from occuring, at least let them find us ready.