May someone please smack Moses Magogo
Jacobs O. Seaman
By Jacobs O. Seaman
The National Council of Sports has so much trust in itself and the government whose interest it seeks to serve more than the wider sports.
The officials at Lugogo are pleased to sit for three years awaiting on government support in refurbishing national tennis courts. So confident are they in this wait that they are willing to ignore a few dollars being dangled in their face for the same facility.
The International Tennis Federation has been willing to put in a meagre $50,000 toward the cause. Sh183b is just enough to treat five Covid-19 patients in Uganda. But trusting in government to do better, whether using public-private partnership, is akin to walking on wires and we know only magicians do that.
Here is the same government that has no qualms turning a playground like at Ntinda Road Police Station into a car bond, and a national stadium like Nakivubo into a shopping mall. And NCS awaits on the same government...
The wait will be long. Probably long enough for a Ham Mukasa to refurbish Lugogo into an arcade. Aren’t arcades suffering downtown and would do with some fresh air in a situate like Lugogo?
In time, Ugandans will say to “hell with NCS and their facilities.” But they shouldn’t say this of Moses Magogo just as yet. The Fufa president has decided to risk besmirching his great legacy in the game by jumping into the political fray.
Magogo might not be a thief but he is no saint either. His critics, in fact, believe he is no different than Gianni Infantino and the two top men in football before him Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter who face Swiss prosecutors over corruption today and tomorrow, respectively.
However, while Magogo has been shielded from scrutiny because of Fifa’s thick tarpaulin, joining politics could peel off that protective layer. What should bother well-meaning Ugandans is how he will run the game and also sit and deliberate national politics without getting greasy.
Someone should smack Magogo; it is a folly to attempt to sit on two moving bikes at the same time.
