Mutebi favourite to retain best coach award

KAMPALA. For the last three years, KCCA coach Mike Mutebi has almost had a patent on all best coach awards – from the Airtel-Fufa Awards to the Uganda Premier League. Mutebi remains odds-on favourite to take home this year’s Airtel-Fufa award after being placed in the same pool with former Vipers league winning coach Miguel Da Costa, Kawempe Muslim’s Ayub Khalifa, Ndejje University’s Raymond Timothy Komakech and Alex Isabirye of Kyetume.
Whereas Da Costa lifted the league title with Vipers last season, his impact on the team was questionable thus culminating into his dismissal immediately after the trophy celebrations.
For his part, Mutebi finished second in the league, beat Vipers in Uganda Cup finals and did a novelty – taking KCCA to the lucrative Caf Champions League group stages.
Isabirye and Komakech’s success stories can be traced in the Fufa Big League but Kyetume did not make it to the top tier and Ndejje did not lift the ultimate trophy apart from gaining promotion.
It will be testing for the voting authority, the Uganda Coaches Association, to quantify Khalifa’s achievement in women football with Kawempe against his colleagues.
Speaking at the weekly Fufa press conference at Mengo on Wednesday, chairman of the awards organising committee, Rogers Byamukama revealed they had included new categories like upcoming talent, most promising player, coach of the year, referee of the year, beach soccer player of the year and upcoming referee.
The main contest is in the male player of the year category that has KCCA’s Allan Okello, Vipers Moses Waiswa and Onduparaka’s Vianey Sekajugo.