Continental football remains opportunity, trap for Uganda clubs

Better Team. KCCA have reaped the fruits of playing in Africa.

What you need to know:

  • While KCCA has the financial muscle of its parent body to thank for putting it on a path toward self sufficiency, the directing hand of other non-institutional clubs remains none the wiser.

Uganda is fielding two representatives (Vipers SC and KCCA) in this season’s Caf inter-club competitions.
Such an outcome was by no means assured in the recent past.
Danger of teams opting out as Paidha Black Angels and Vipers to mention but two did was never far away. This left Ugandan club football no better than it was -- if anything worse.
Playing on the continent has always been viewed as a work of considerable difficulty.

The sledgehammer blow it has on the bottom line (flights within Africa are notoriously costly) has seen many club boards maintain their scorn for continental assignments.
Yet despite having given the not unreasonable impression of placing a great burden -- yoke if you will -- on clubs’ shoulders, an irresistible pull of continental club football seems to have been sparked in a moment.
The new-found appeal can be captured in the rich rewards KCCA has enjoyed over the past couple of seasons.

The Kasasiro Boys saw their saw their financial spreadsheet move to a position of strength after reaching the business end of the Caf Confederation Cup and Champions League in successive seasons.
If the idea of sacrifice weighed heavily on the club, then whatever disadvantage of mounting expenses incurred was quickly wiped out after reaching the money-spinning group stage. The arithmetic is pretty simple -- you have to sow so as to reap.
It’s not like there was an absence of a juicy carrot to produce a great vacancy in the first place. Caf has always held out decent prize packets, but the task of profiting from them appeared particularly formidable for many a Ugandan club. That was until KCCA provided a handy template.

Focusing on Caf’s juicy carrot, however, obscures a fundamental problem. There’s no great secret to, or difficulty in, the manner Ugandan clubs have long grappled with the deeply unsettling question of putting together resources to fund campaigns both at home and, crucially, abroad.
While KCCA has the financial muscle of its parent body to thank for putting it on a path toward self sufficiency, the directing hand of other non-institutional clubs remains none the wiser.
Vipers, who are flying the country’s flag in the Champions League, can’t seem to shake off the fact that they are at the whim of patron and founder, Lawrence Mulindwa.

His volatile temperament instantly asserts itself at the slightest difference of opinion, and for the Venoms this could possibly mean no continental football as indeed has been the case before.
How they insulate themselves from such vagaries remains to be seen.
One thing’s for sure, though, Vipers have many Ugandan clubs giving them company in the tent. All this means that there’s work to be done.