About Uganda’s new sports Act

The National Sports Act creates a novel sports pyramids whose tenacity is yet to be tested. The Act creates Community Sports Clubs (CSCs), National Sports Federations (NSFs), National Sports Organisation (NSOs), and jointly refers to them as “NSOs. 

The CSCs are provided for under Section 26 of the NSA and are at the bottom of the sports pyramid. Upon registration with the NCS, the CSCs will equally attain corporate status and shall be artificial sports persons. 

The Act is least detailed on this form of NSO. There is no clear definition or identifiers as to what amounts to a CSC. The Act simply empowers the Sports minister to further particularise on what structures the CSCs will take, a potential headache in the waiting for Hon Peter Ogwang.

Outside the NSA, a CSC may be defined as a voluntary organisation that has a primary mandate to provide recreational and competitive sports services to its members. Sports Club Villa and Kampala City Council sports clubs are good examples traceable on the Ugandan sports terrain.

Currently sports academics are pushing for profit orientation to be de-coupled from operations of CSCs. Making sports clubs non-profit entities would be at odds with professionalisation and commercialisation of sports, a bitter pill for potential sports investors.

The history of CSCs in the Act can be traced from the National Sports Bill that was presented by Hon Moses Hassim Magogo. Under clause, 20 of the private member’s Bill, incorporation of CSCs was the ticket that permits  sports clubs to play in amateur or professional sports leagues that are organised by NSFs or NSAs. This is a major deviation from the current format where sports clubs are registered or incorporated in Uganda.

At the time of writing, the practice is that sports clubs are incorporated or registered as companies at the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (USRB), under the registry of companies. The sports companies, aka, clubs may then be registered or licensed to play in sports leagues across the country. 

As a matter of fact, one of the challenges sports law practitioners are currently encountering at URSB, is that once an entity discloses that one of its objectives is to engage in a sports discipline, the company registry will require such a club to have a recommendation letter from the federation or association in-charge of that sports discipline. To get such a letter, the applicants are forced to go through the entire licensing process under the NSF or NSO, which would in turn also require that the applicant be a company. A classic catch-22.

Such a disconnect between URSB, NFS and NSOs has frustrated a number of sport investors that have, out of frustration decided to set up shop in neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Kenya that they find to have more conducive and organised structures.

With the coming of the NSA, sports companies that are currently operational will need to make a decision of either de-register as companies and register as CSCs. Or run a dual registration structure that will leave clubs as both companies and CSCs. Something club administrators have to ponder about deeply. 

This ultimately migrates registration powers from URSB to the NCS which will now become the epicentre for sports registrations in the country.

It is also pertinent to note that this will have an effect on other statutory bodies such as the Uganda Revenue Authority that already has standing relationships with sports companies which may include tax liabilities. Many sports entities also have on-going court cases and in such circumstances, de-registration of an entity can never be a walk over unless a clear succession plan is codified under the yet to be released Regulations on CSCs.

Mr Timothy Kajja  is a sports lawyer and lecturer of law at ucu and kyu.

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