Muhangi vs Fufa: good battle but…

KAMPALA. “We won’t relent in this battle against unfair distribution of national funds; I can fix an appointment with Museveni but let me first go through all the channels available,” said Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) president Moses Muhangi at the annual general assembly last weekend. The vow was met with a unanimously applause, even from some who have challenged his presidency in courts of law.
On Wednesday, Muhangi petitioned the Minister of Education and Sports seeking to block Fufa from ‘robbing’ Shs10bn of the Shs17.4bn sports budget for the 2019-2020 financial year. Good battle for sports because it is unfair that the 47 federations will have to share a paltry Shs4bn as the Shs3bn caters for operating costs of the National Council of Sports (NCS).

But it is equally unfair for Muhangi to belittle Fufa’s achievements as “practically nothing” or forget the way they bargained for this supplementary funding from the President. The fair diction would be: if Fufa deserve Shs10bn, especially in a year they are preparing for the Afcon in Egypt, boxing deserves more than Shs125m per quarter.
Facts first: in 2014, Uganda sent five boxers to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Two got bronze medals, despite losing their semifinals. These are some of the ‘many medals’ Muhangi flaunts in the face of his namesake Moses Magogo to negate Fufa’s claim that football is the country’s favourite sport and thus deserves 57 percent of the national sports budget.

Differing dynamics
We need some simple juxtapositions because football and boxing are completely different sports.
A full boxing team consists of 10 athletes. One in association football is made of 11. In boxing, however, the team aspect ceases because only one fighter enters the ring, yet a football match cannot kickoff if one team fields less than seven players.

This takes us to two aspects: preparation and success. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics only one boxer, Ronald Sserugo, represented Uganda. Yet if the Kobs, Uganda’s U23 football team, had qualified for the same event, not less than 23 players would have travelled. Which makes football a far more expensive sport to manage than boxing or any other individual sport. This team aspect also explains why football has been less successful than individual sports like boxing or athletics. Preps are costly. Qualification hectic. Competition stiff and requires systematic organisation and too much luck to make all the parts of the team perform to the task. A committed Denis Onyango, who ensured Uganda concedes not more than three goals against superior opponents [Egypt, Ghana and Mali], could not help the Cranes progress past the 2017 Afcon group stages because the Faruku Miyas could not score more than one goal.

Not the way Stephen Kiprotich absconded Prisons duty, camped in Kenya and took that determination to scoop Olympic and World marathon gold. Or the way Juma Miiro got a bye to the quarterfinals, won just one bout and got bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
Even the best sprinters know that relays are more prone to failure than solo efforts.

And does anyone care that in boxing even losing semifinalists get medals? Since 2004, 11 of Uganda’s 16 boxing medals are bronze. Doesn’t this partly explain why it’s easier to win a boxing medal than in any other sport?
Hence we need to judge Fufa’s success beyond just medals and trophies. Our football employs a much bigger population than boxing or any other sport.

Political capital
While it might take years for football to match boxing’s podium success, boxing might never match football’s popularity. This is down to what Fufa, in its response to Muhangi, called “brand equity…which has cost us volumes of resources in terms of time and money.”
In his petition, Muhangi disagrees that football is the most popular sport in Uganda. “I encourage you to spare some time and watch the FUFA broadcasted games on Sanyuka TV where stadiums are largely empty, which defeats the assertion that Fufa [sic] is a popular sport,” the dossier reads in part.

But let’s face it: Ugandan football, itself recovering from costly wrangles, is still struggling to bring the fans back to stadiums. But even when most are preoccupied with European soccer and betting, it is reckless to assume that boxing can match football’s popularity.
The recent National Boxing Open stood out for huge crowds that filled the MTN Arena in Lugogo and some watched from a projector in the Arena’s compound. But how would the same spectators, approximately 1500, appear on TV if they sat in Namboole, where SC Villa hosts its league games? Besides, the fans thronged the Arena partly because entry was free. The National Open happens once a year. But football fans pay [between Shs3000 to Sh5000] twice a week for league games, for almost nine months.

Muhangi also refutes Fufa’s alleged claim that the mammoth crowds that watch Uganda Cranes at Namboole can translate into political capital, in terms of votes, for the NRM government. But sources close to both UBF and Fufa admit that “for every single boxing vote, football gives you a thousand. And that’s what makes sense to the Big Man,” the President, the fountain of every favour, who granted Fufa this enviable Shs10bn.
Imagine MP Robert Kyagulanyi’s appearance at the National Open. But it is unfathomable that Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, can share the same audience with Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
Instead, the First Son was accompanied by Bobi’s music rival Bebe Cool and his yellow-clad Silent Majority team.

Muhoozi promised Shs34m worth of boxing equipment. He also promised to convince the President “to get you a new ring,” which was greeted with lively applause. But this historic visit left many guessing. Bebe Cool, who had been a regular since the tournament begun, was almost shut up by booing crowds chanting People Power slogans. He denies any political interests, instead vows to take the concerns of the boxing youths to the President. But many suspect him as a ‘silent’ weapon to counter Bobi’s overwhelming support in the ghettos.
Muhangi’s proximity to the regime’s bigwigs can somehow help his argument that boxing can punch the same political weight with football.

The unconfirmed

A lot has been written and posted but a lot is still unclear: many wonder why Muhangi is targeting Fufa and not NCS or how does NCS endorse this “unfair” distribution of the national cake? The answers are ironical. Some sources from Fufa say this is not a Muhangi battle. Instead, it is NCS’s battle vs Fufa, with Muhangi a willing mercenary. Yet some claim there are many beneficiaries of kickbacks as this money leaves the national treasury to federations. So, a fair distribution remains only ideal. In Uganda, anything is possible.

Boxing lacks a national training facility, a standard ring, among others. Muhangi is right to claim he can sort this and more with increased government funding. He brokered the five-year sponsorship from UNAIDS, best thing that has ever happened to boxing. But he is wrong to seek a deduction from what belongs to Fufa because in life you get what you bargain for. Not what you deserve. Fufa got what they bargained for.

UGANDA’S BOXING RECORD AT:
Olympics
Medals 4: 0 gold 3 silver 1 bronze
World Championship
Medals 2: 1 gold, 0 silver, 1 bronze
Commonwealth Games
Medals 34: 8 gold, 10 silver 16 bronze
African Confederation Championship
Medals 8: 1 gold, 2 silver, 5 bronze
All-Africa Games
Medals 21: 8 gold, 7 silver 6 bronze

NCS QUARTERLY BUDGET FOR 2018/19
Fufa Shs1.022bn
UNF Shs375m
Fuba Shs375m
UAF Shs225m
UBF Shs125m
Uganda Paralympic Committee Shs37.5m
Association of University Sports Shs125m
URU Shs48.5m
*Besides the priority sports, NCS funds many of the 48 registered federations.

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