Borrowing leaf from corporates

In under a fortnight, Uganda will for the first time in ages host a major tournament worth its weight thanks to the power of television and corporate sponsorship.

As the hosting honours for regional championships became the preserve of Tanzania and the continental/global tournaments literally pitched camp at the Amahoro in Kigali, in Uganda the people designated to pursue them chose to get embroiled in a hideous fight for domestic control.

That is not to say that in the heat of battle the said ‘warriors’ lost their admirable ability to pick up the scent of a quick buck (it is central to their every conflict after all). It is just that hosting those tournaments didn’t actually make financial sense, until now (Kenya’s protracted but failed struggle to host this particular Cecafa edition spoke volumes).

The advent of this Cecafa however presents some eye openers for our warmongers (for the lack of a better word) and the rest of the football fraternity sucked into this never-ending melee, deceived about its merits and blinded to the realities of bigger picture.

Never mind the depths to which we have sunk thanks to the altercations between the Uganda Super League and our federation, Supersport and Bell have continued to sponsor the USL but will now ‘jump into bed’ with Fufa, via Cecafa, to stage this one.Two issues stick out in this arrangement, the respect for contractual obligations and the ease with which multinational corporate bodies will rise above relatively trivial politics to conduct real business.

Since we want to turn the game here into the money-spinning monster it is everywhere else, we have got to borrow a leaf from these successful corporate bodies on both the above-mentioned fronts.If we stubbornly insist on fighting a win-at-all-costs war until we have one bloodied victor standing over a vanquished corpse, the price to pay for those involved, the nation and the game will be too high I am afraid.

From sport through politics to economics, those around the world who are more schooled and successful evidently operate on the basic principle of survival and equilibrium which supposes that we don’t have to like each other to work together.It is an argument friends and foes alike deem idealistic (even naïve), but one I strongly believe in.

mmssali@yahoo.com
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