Culture of hard work sure to dispel match fixing fears

KCCA manager Mutebi opened a can of worms when he stressed that league champions in the past 20 seasons have been getting pre-determined results. PHOTO BY ISMAIL KEZAALA

Mike Mutebi is an intensely forthright person. He has long been lionised as a man of moral rectitude. Which is why his claim that many clubs have in the recent past set aside money not in as much for a rainy day as to fix matches has been met with a firestorm of support and condemnation.

In truth, the condemnation appears misplaced as there’s more than a kernel of truth in the allegation. The sooner we stop playing the proverbial ostrich with head in sand, the better.

Match fixing in Ugandan football has always been a nightmare experience that’s not easily brushed off. Having a candid discussion about the problem can only be viewed as a move tailored to will the sport to turn the corner.

Let us, however, assume that the crimes of the past cannot be visited on the present. That we have a clean slate. That the siren calls have gone mute. That -- as such -- we can have a ruthlessly unsentimental look at what has happened in this season’s topflight league.

A dash of care and thoughtfulness should proclaim Bashir Mutanda as the find of the first round. One goal away from reaching double figures, Mutanda has been a rare bright spark for SC Villa who find themselves at the wrong end of the 16-team log.

Yet as Villa fans, players and backroom staff grapple with frightening outpourings of bitterness at their circumstances, KCCA FC faithful are experiencing a distinctly different type of sensation. For that the log leaders have Mutebi to thank. The cocky KCCA manager has ripped up old ideas about game management, provoking other Uganda Premier League coaches to raise their game in the process.

Mutebi is known for the depth of his interpretations and elegance of his execution. Fused together, the subtle interpretations and executions steered the Kasasiro Boys to the business end of last season’s Caf Champions League.

Which is just as well. Mutebi doesn’t waste any time to assert himself in the dugout. The mask of neutral concentration always slips off from the outset, replaced with focused expressions and whines that do not betray his frustrations. This always keeps his players on tenterhooks. Those that let their guard down either at best get a tongue-lashing or at worst are cut loose.

By doing so, being in the faces of players and all, Mutebi wittingly inculcates a culture where hard work and discipline are a necessity rather than a choice.

The absence of the two intangibles is what has short circuited many players’ careers. Tough love always keeps players on the rails.

That said; the same discipline and hard work that we demand of players is what we should expect from club officials to whose care they are entrusted. Thankfully, we have Mutebi to remind us of obligations from either side of the aisle.

What Cheptegei’s double taught us

Twenty-eighteen has had a range of success stories for Ugandan sport, but none eclipsed Joshua Cheptegei’s long-distance double at the Commonwealth Games.

The games, which took place in the Australian city of Gold Coast and were shorn of the appearance of the legendary Mo Farah, offered distance runners a chance to audition for a leading role in what in many respects is a new era.

Cheptegei seized the moment, and for that earned his stripes to be your columnist’s sports personality of the year. Of course the feats Cheptegei effortlessly pulled off at the Carrara Stadium are far from being unlike anything Ugandans have ever seen before. Moses Kipsiro won a long-distance double at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
So novelty was hardly the calling card of the feat in Gold Coast.

So what was? Well, the warmth with which this column receives Cheptegei’s long-distance double owes much to the fact that few Ugandans recover from episodes that are astonishingly harsh on reputation.

Cheptegei’s spectacular meltdown on home soil during the senior men’s race of the 2017 IAAF World Cross Country Championships is well documented. It was an embarrassing spectacle that would knock the stuffing out of someone. But not Cheptegei it turns out.

The 22-year-old has spoken with great clarity about the misstep at Kololo Independence Ground making him “hungrier.” Medals from the Worlds and Commonwealth Games show a streak of success to which no-one can quite frankly ever take offence.

They also show that there is a way back up after one has taken a tumble. To make a splash in the murky waters of sport, you have to have a strong mental fortitude. Cheptegei delivered the clearest expression of that message this year.

What we now know....

We know that Monday will bring with it Christmas. We know that Christmas means a host of different things to different people. It could be a time of generosity, overconsumption or even stress.
What’s not in doubt is that central to the feasts we stitch together is the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. May it be a merry one!

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@robertmadoi