Government wants to vet next Cranes coach

Hoima. Government wants to participate in the vetting of the national soccer coach, sports state minister Charles Bakkabulindi, has said.
Uganda’s football governing body, the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) early this week started a process of recruiting the next Cranes’ coach.
The federation constituted a team to find Serbian Micho Sredojevic’s replacement. The team, led by Kalusha Bwalya, a CAF and Fifa member, comprises Fufa Chief Executive officer Edgar Watson, technical Director Asuman Lubowa and Livingstone Kyambadde, a representative of Uganda coaches association as well as a representative from the National Council of sports.
“I told the leadership of Fufa to write to us so that we do the process together especially if we are to pay the coach,” he told Daily Monitor last week at Hoima School on Nursing and Midwifery where he represented Education and Sports Minister Janet Museveni during the institution’s fourth graduation ceremony.
“If we don’t participate in the procurement as a government process, then that will be the business of Fufa,” Bakkabulindi added.
“But, if we involve ourselves in the procurement of the coach, we shall negotiate together on what package to give him (the coach). You can’t negotiate with the coach privately and you come and tell me that you want me to give that coach USD 40,000. I will not accept because I was not involved in the negotiations” Bakkabulindi said.
Asked on how government will harmonize its concerns with Fufa, Bakkabulindi said government anticipates Fufa to approach it requesting for budget support to pay the coach.
“Let them start on the preliminaries and we see where they end” he added.
The Fufa spokesperson Ahmed Hussein said the five-man panel that is recruiting the national coach has a representative from the National council of sports which is a Government arm.
He said Fufa wrote to relevant government offices and due processes have been followed in the ongoing recruitment process.