Cricket
USL sponsors to stay
Bright Stars celebrate after winning the lower tier Fufa Big League last weekend. Despite earning promotion, the Kawempe side are not sure of the next step because of wrangles in the topflight division. PHOTO BY ismail kezaala.
In Summary
Uganda Breweries promise to continue bankrolling the topflight league as long as government and other stakeholders come clean.
Kampala
As government expectedly comes out today to officially give a detailed communication of their decision on the way forward for Ugandan football, sponsors of the Uganda Super League (Uganda) have expressed their readiness to stay in the game.
A Cabinet sitting chaired by Henry Kajura, the second deputy Prime Minister, last Wednesday passed recommendations by the Education and Sports Ministry following Permanent Secretary Francis Lubanga’s findings into the chaos that has engulfed Ugandan football.
Among several passed resolutions is that the joke that has been Fufa Super League (FSL) and Uganda Super League (USL) – two oddly parallel topflight leagues – ceases, at least in name. That starting with the 2013/14 season, the country’s supreme league will be called the Uganda Premier League (UPL), with teams from FSL and USL, who were originally in the Jinja Declaration that brought the latter into being in 2010, merging.
Speaking after the Cabinet meeting, Education and Sports Minister Jessica Alupo is optimistic that USL sponsors, SuperSport (five-year Shs13b broadcast deal) and Uganda Breweries Limited – UBL - (three-year 2.2b pact) would stick by them by channelling the money to the UPL. And true there were concerns as the sponsors grew impatient over the dragging of the matter, which saw them indulge government to arrest the rot or they pull out of the game.
But the Daily Monitor talked with UBL and the company are steadfast as long as they have government and stakeholders’ word. “We are still waiting for an official communication from government as per the Cabinet ruling,” Richard Wabwire, UBL’s corporate relationships and regulation affairs director, told us at the weekend, “For now we have also just read (Cabinet ruling) in the Monitor. “But we haven’t changed,” he added, “We have been consistent.
We want to stay supporting football and sports in general but we made it clear, we want everything done legally and we want everyone on equal footing if we are to continue. “If those are fulfilled, then we are in. But let’s first get the official communication from government and then we shall take it from there.”
Efforts to get a comment from SuperSport were futile but the broadcaster’s head of football in Africa, Stanley Matthews, was optimistic after meeting with the education minister in February telling close sources that “everything would be okay.”
amwanguhya@ug.nationmedia.com
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