Familiar chaos greets the start of new club football season that KCCA could dominate

Aldrine Nsubuga has a way with words and he usually delivers them with the pace of a motormouth. He is also a prolific writer on both mainstream and social media platforms.

On Thursday, he brought to light a peculiar iteration of an agreement between Fufa and StarTimes intended—as he told his nearly 5,000 friends on Facebook—“to produce and broadcast at least 60 games of the StarTimes Uganda Premier League on FUFA Tv (sic) starting with new 2022/23 season for the next 6 seasons.”

Nsubuga, the StarTimes Uganda veep, had earlier found it necessary to reassure his audience at a media briefing that the iteration “creates an opportunity to have more games on TV, now that we have two channels.” There is, he raised an intriguing but ultimately improbable possibility, “a chance to have more than 100 games live per season.”

Clubs, which do no more than command blind obedience in the overall scheme of things, for now have indicated no intention to break with their passivity and conformism. There is, however, every indication that not running the cookie-cutter ‘improvements’ by the clubs could lead to the ratcheting up of tensions.

Already, top flight women clubs seem troubled by the prospect of having 10am kickoffs.

In fact, one can easily conclude that the existing state of affairs has the trappings of an unmitigated disaster. In a fraternity where outrage travels fast, Fufa’s bewildering array of assets seem keen to make enemies wherever and in whatever way they are leveraged.

Never mind that Moses Magogo—the federation’s top honcho—has done his best to sound imperious throughout. His pep talk about fearless self-improvement —for the most part delivered with utter conviction—has not stopped the new club football season from spiralling.

The toing and froing regarding the status of Kyetume Football Club in the off season was accordingly faulty. Fufa’s feeble attempts to try and disassociate itself from the saga’s all-pervading status were without success. Now, iterations to the TV deal with StarTimes have left many clubs—with good reason—feeling undervalued.

Yet readers of this column will still expect yours truly to weigh in on who will rule the roost during this season’s StarTimes Uganda Premier League. As stated previous times before, your columnist is averse to making predictions.

Last season, I reluctantly joined several of my colleagues at Daily Monitor in hazarding a guess that Vipers SC would go all the way. And it did.

For vast swathes of the first round, it appeared that I erred in writing off KCCA FC entirely. They were even seconds away from upstaging the Venoms in their Kitende backyard until Bobosi Byaruhanga spared the home side’s blushes with a memorable piledriver.

The wheels eventually came off the KCCA FC wagon in the second round. Many high priests of the game put this down to Morley Byekwaso’s tactical naïveté.

This essentially means that the KCCA FC head coach will be under tremendous pressure to prove his worth in the new season. I will add to that pressure by tipping the Garbage Collectors to, well, collect their 14th league title.

I like the look about the richly assembled squad at Lugogo, the wholesale changes made in the off season notwithstanding. While Sadat Anaku will be sorely missed, the additions of the likes of Shaban Muhammad, Allan Okello and Moses Waiswa should more than fill the void created.

As always, Vipers will be in the mix. Despite losing the physical and intellectual presence of César Lobi Manzoki and Halid Lwaliwa at either end of the pitch, Roberto Oliveira Gonçalves do Carmo alias Robertinho has a strong squad that can mount a challenge on several fronts. Ultimately, though, I expect Byekwaso’s charges to win the two-horse race. But only just.