Football ticked most of the boxes
Uganda’s U17 team qualified for their first Afcon next year in Tanzania as Cecafa champions. BY JOHN BATANUDDE
KAMPALA- There are some rare feel-good vibes in Ugandan football, now and in the last few years, replacing what used to be an annual review of scandals that headlined the game over 365 days.
From youth football through the men’s senior national team, club sponsorships and continental journeys - down to Vipers giving us a new touch of a stadium to be proud of, it is a year to write home about.
Of course the ugly head of alleged match fixing, thanks in part to referees’ delayed payments, too, came through, but let us first run through the good.
Cranes back to the table of men
After a woeful start to the year by home-based players in Chan 2018 Morocco, which was followed by a spate of winless friendlies, bar a 3-0 victory over lowly Sao Tome and Principe in March, threatened Uganda’s year early on.
But new coach Sebastien Desabre’s Cranes regrouped and bounced back from a disappointing goalless draw with Tanzania in September to dispatch Lesotho home and away 3-0 and 0-2.
They then went on to edge Cape Verde 1-0 at Namboole in November to qualify for the 2019 Afcon finals with a match to spare. This was the first time Uganda were making a second successive qualification, the last coming in 1976.
U-17 hit cloud nine
For their fairytale run in the 2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations Central-East Zone qualification, in which they climaxed with 3-1 final victory over Ethiopia, the Cubs have been rewarded with two-time champions Nigeria, Angola and hosts Tanzania in Group A at next year’s event.
The Ugandans will be making their debut at the tournament to be hosted in Tanzania between April 14 and 28 next year.
Fufa, with good funding from Fifa, will take credit for implementing the U-17/19 Junior League project from which conveyer belt the country and clubs all benefitting.
KCCA ruffle feathers on continent
The 12-time national champions, after clinching the title in the two seasons preceding the last, had to settle for second best this time as Vipers SC soared above them.
But manager Mike Mutebi’s men made some telling statements on the continent, where they added onto their feat of playing in the group stages of the lower Caf Confederation Cup in the previous campaign by actually mixing with the continent’s best in the Champions League round-robin pool.
KCCA’s only undoing, after going past CNaPS and St George, was that home and away defeat to Tunisian giants Esperance. They put up some starring performances away from home, only inexperience costing them in the 3-2 and 4-3 defeats to Esperance and Al Ahly.
They did beat Botswana’s Township Rollers at home but their biggest result was the 2-0 defeat of Africa’s most successful club, Al Ahly, at Namboole.
Vipers take bragging rights
Vipers recovered from a slow start to rack up pressure in the second round as then coach Miguel da Costa and his team pulled off crucial victories over SC Villa and KCCA to build onto an unbeaten run that reached 27 games with that 3-1 victory over Bul recently.
Part of that run helped them clinch their third league title with 65 points, four ahead of dethroned KCCA.
One wonders what the story could have been had it not been for that masterstroke January acquisition of striker Daniel Sserunkuma from Express.
The dreadlocked forward scored 11 of his 17 goals in the second half to help Vipers to the title. They had qualified for the first round of the Caf Champions League by press time.
Sponsorships
This year saw Azam contract to broadcast the national league end and StarTimes take over the title broadcasting rights of the Uganda Premier League (UPL) and Big League (FBL).
Although the 10-year length of the deal was questioned by observers, it was markedly a good deal $7.24m (Shs27bn), especially for a league that risked going for no sponsorship at all.
The deal has the UPL and the Big League getting $600,000 (Shs2.1bn) and $80,000 (Shs280m) per year respectively in the first four years. Their collective fund then grows by 7.35 per cent to $730,000 (Shs2.55bn) per year for the next four years and finally to $800,000 (Shs2.8bn) per season for the last two years.
Several clubs also saw their coffers improve, with betting company Betway offering shs400m each season to Express.
That was in addition to shs100m Equity bank deal with the Red Eagles. Champions Vipers had early on sealed a two-year Shs300m partnership with Dfcu.
Pilsner also came through with the Super 8 sponsorship and UPL Man of the Man award.
St Mary’s Stadium
Vipers president Lawrence Mulindwa unveiled the club’s refurbished stadium in September, which now boasts of international standards artificial pitch, redesigned dressing rooms, top notch dugouts and some thousands of seats.
A feel of the stadium makes you forget any wrong thing Mulindwa could ever have done. For his efforts, Mulindwa received Fufa presidential award from his successor Moses Magogo.
Match fixing
This remains the worst kept secret. Ali Waiswa, one of the refereeing bosses, appeared on NTV Press Box and claimed match fixing was rampant in the country.
Fufa went ahead to institute a probe into the allegations, interviewing all actors. That report was recently handed over to Fufa but details had not been made public by press time.
Seemingly disappointed by lack of action taken, KCCA manager Mike Mutebi came out strong this month saying the league title for the last two decades has been fixed, that only titles won under his reign have been born of honesty.
Feeling naked, Fufa released a numb statement saying they would follow up on this. Can they first release findings from the probe they instituted?
Fufa Awards
Credit to Fufa, the awards ceremony has been successfully held for three years running, now. But more successfully, Fufa and their system of voting have perfected the art of seemingly determining their own version of winners. Awards are contentious world over.
But for Fufa, they defy logic. For the Male MVP, all the last three winners have statistically been Fufa’s choice, with actual achievements of the would-be winners cast by the wayside.
Muhammad Shaban beat Africa’s Player of the Year Denis Onyango in 2016, Muzamiru Mutyaba edged the country and teammate KCCA’s best player Geoffrey Sserunkuma for 2017, and Moses Waiswa beat Viane Sekajugo and Allan Okello to the 2018 gong.
Worth noting, the league’s arguably best player Daniel Sserunkuma, whose 11 second round strikes of his 17 goals helped Vipers to the league title, did not make the 2018 final three shortlist.
