Why KCCA and Mike Mutebi shouldn’t keep looking outward for answers

When Vipers beat KCCA to the 2019/2020 StarTimes Uganda Premier League title, observers were quick to forecast a full-blown assault by the latter on the local transfer market. Whereas it took a force majeure provision in the Fufa statutes to dislodge KCCA as Ugandan champions, indications that the balance of power was shifting in Vipers’ favour were bountiful last season. This followed a spending spree that put acclaimed names like Fahad Bayo, Paul Mucureezi, Muhammad Shaban, Milton Karisa, and Allan Kayiwa on the Venoms’ payroll.

Despite having high-profile signings of its own, not least John Revita, Erisa Ssekisambu and Keziron Kizito, KCCA was deemed not to have packed a powerful punch in the market. A correction seemed due if it wanted to hold on to its coveted status as Ugandan club football’s leading light. What has since ensued in the so-called silly season are persistent links to any player of outstanding ability. The rumour mill has kept on buzzing even after the Kasasiro Boys unveiled Ashraf Mugume and Charles Lwanga last weekend. There’s more to come, we’ve been told. More ‘chaos’.
KCCA fans will no doubt have their inexhaustible appetite whetted as the possibility of finding beauty amid ‘chaos’ lingers on. Leadership changes at City Hall and a pandemic that has tightened the purse strings might put a floor under KCCA’s transfer activity.

The reaction from KCCA faithful to an absence of a glut of signings should range from an indifferent shrug of the shoulders to mild consternation. Here’s why:
while purchases are crucial, they are not always defining. Certainly, for a club whose academy has come up with the goods such as KCCA’s.
More than anything, though, it is Mike Mutebi’s scattergun approach in the transfer market that presents a spot of bother. While the KCCA manager has had runaway success having precocious talents from the academy bedded into senior ranks, miscalculations haven’t been avoided in the market.

This tantalisingly obvious weakness could be down to the fact that Mutebi has previously had his eye set on recruiting players that infuse experience into KCCA.
While some purchases have suited the club well (notably Geoff Sserunkuma), booby traps have been strewn almost everywhere with the likes of Robert Ssentongo proving to be a poisoned chalice.
While the recent pursuit of young blood (Pius Obuya and Bright Anukani) signals a change in tack, there’s every chance that the rigour of Mutebi’s approach could still be to his detriment.

Looking from the outside, it appears starlets from the academy are conditioned to take such strictness in their stride. Young or old, there is no certainty that recruits will take Mutebi’s distinctive hairdryer treatments on the chin.
All of this begs of the question: what’s the wisdom in looking out when the results are angry and haunting by turns?
Like most quandaries, this one has no easy and quick answers. One will, however, have to be found. And quickly.

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This column has previously been unyielding in pushing for a decoupling as local sport looks to emerge from lockdown.
After a notoriously opaque approach, the sports fraternity finally got some clarity this past week when National Council of Sports made known three risk categorisations of 51 sporting disciplines it runs the rule over.
Football, a favourite of many Ugandans, is among a dozen sports deemed highrisk. Cricket, a personal favourite of your columnist, is joined by 19 others in the medium risk category. The low risk sports meantime total 18.

All these disciplines – even in the variance of their risk assessment, or in fact because of it – will have to prove a strict adherence to standard operating procedures tailored to flatten the Covid-19 curve. Hopefully, they put some money
aside for a rainy day. They will sure need it to make inroads during what is primed to be a long wait.