Why midfielder Mawejje should be held up as a role model in Ugandan football

At a time when the modern-day football pro is comfortable with ostentatious displays off the pitch, Tonny Mawejje’s modesty takes on renewed significance. When the well-travelled player recently confirmed his return to Ugandan club football with Police, there was a temptation to conclude that the tenacious midfielder has scaled the peak of his playing career.

Although the vast majority of observers greeted his return warmly, a few others insisted that the 30-something was struggling for work and respect.
If it’s indeed true that Mawejje was confronted with the harsh reality that – outside Uganda – he is at the end of his tether, then his decision to bid farewell, hopefully with a flourish, on home soil deserves praise.

Many Ugandan footballers seem ill at ease when the back end of their playing careers leaves them with little choice but to come full circle. The atmosphere where it all started is deemed too curdling that the players never find the will to press forward for their last hurrah.
Turns out not Mawejje. He has been careful enough not to frame his return to Ugandan club football as a reasonable compromise or even the lesser of two evils (retirement being the other). The 30-something may not be the ‘midfield general’ he once was, but he has given every indication that his presence in the bloodstream of Ugandan club football will be anything but toxic.

Johnny-come-latelies in Uganda can learn a thing or two from a player who once went into the midst of a peak MacDonald Mariga and dared him to do his worst.
To understand why Mawejje is unafraid to get his hands dirty in the StarTimes Uganda Premier League, it helps a great deal to interest yourself in something visceral.
There has always been a child-like innocence about the player. Mawejje’s boyish features might have belied the steel of a man when he signed his first player’s licence with Masaka LC all those years back. What the features didn’t mask was the pure, unadulterated innocence that moved the player to ask for a paltry sign-on bonus of Shs400,000.
Looking back at the incident, the midfielder recently told NTV’s Press Box show that all he cared about was playing. He still does.

When Mawejje went on to deliver on the promise he had always shown, he found himself not short of suitors. Villa, an implacable juggernaut shortly after the turn of the second millennium, was among the suitors. No one back then turned down the Jogoos.
The innocence in Mawejje, however, compelled him to opt for KCCA on account of the Yellow Lads being more aggressive. The Garbage Collectors were not offering more money. Back then, they were rarely spoken about in the revered tones reserved the gilded Villa. But it wasn’t money alone that Mawejje was after.
When the snub meant that Villa Park would not witness the arrival of a restless genius, Micho Sredojevic – then in the Villa dugout – was quick to tell the player he would never make it to the paid ranks. Mawejje did more than make a fist of it as a professional footballer (he spent a decade lodging time in Iceland, South Africa, Norway, Albania, and Kuwait).

He also singlehandedly extinguished calls for Micho’s head with consecutive match winners against Liberia and Angola. This came after the Serb had endured a tough start to his Cranes coaching career. Mawejje celebrated the winner against Angola by peeling off his jersey and revealing a vest bearing the words: “Bwalikujukira (when He remembers you), John 14:14.”

The verse reads: “You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.” A God-fearing player? More innocence. Players of Mawejje’s ilk are a dying breed. Yet, for some strange reason, they are also not noticeable by their absence.
Whatever the case, it’s the wish of your columnist that upstarts in the SUPL pick valuable lessons from a player who packed plenty into the previous two decades with the Cranes. Amidst the spike in shenanigans, it’s refreshing to know that there is still a place for child-like innocence in the beautiful game.

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Twitter: @robertmadoi