Will a plea bargain make Kiwewa Magogo Mark II?

If there is one thing in Ugandan football that is being talked about as much as Cleopatra’s nose was, it is Moses Magogo’s plea bargain. Seen by many as a victory but no triumph, the plea bargain has prompted an awkward pause from Magogo. The brevity of the pause just two months for admission of guilt in a ticket touting scandal has got a bad rap, deservedly so.

The verdict has also polarised opinion. While some strongly believe that Magogo’s credibility has been shot to pieces, others hold that he is untroubled by any hostility. That normal service will resume once a suspension that has made it its business to do nothing ends in December.

Unsurprisingly, a disproportionate number of people that find this pull irresistible sit at the Fufa HQs in Mengo. They are violently opposed to the idea of Magogo stepping down because such an outcome would be both unmerited and humiliating. It would also ensure that their man splits at the seams just when we need him most. The plea bargain, they hasten to add, gave Magogo a clean slate that opens itself to scrutiny in December.

So if the therapeutic power of a plea bargain is that profound, what then will happen in the event that Emmanuel Kiwewa enters one? The centre referee made headlines for all the wrong reasons this past week when a leaked audio outed him for soliciting a bribe in no uncertain terms. The revelation came not as a shock but a troubling inevitability.

Kiwewa’s performances with the whistle have often drifted inexorably toward the scandalous, but accusations have always been circumstantial. But now with something tangible in its possession, the Fufa Referees Standing Committee has asked the local football governing body’s ethics investigatory chamber to probe away.

If ethics investigatory chamber sounds familiar it is because Magogo’s ticket touting sins came up for scrutiny in Fifa’s equivalent. He held his hands up, and the rest is history. So back to that question: what if Kiwewa also entered a plea bargain? Will Fufa’s ethics investigatory chamber replicate Fifa’s leniency and loosen the noose around Kiwewa’s neck? Such an outcome shouldn’t come as a vulgar surprise.

This is after all a Fufa that shamelessly continued to throw its weight behind Robert Donney when the referee seemed grimly determined to do wrong. Donney possesses an unfailing sense of entitlement because Fufa has led him to believe he is untouchable. This speaks volumes about Fufa and probably explains why Kiwewa was behaving the way he did.