Coach Muwanguzi moves to reclaim Dolphins ownership

Uganda’s most celebrated coach Muzafaru Muwanguzi is at loggerhead with the leadership of Dolphins over the ownership of the swimming club.

In fact Muwanguzi sees no contest as he made a decision to drown the board and reclaim the ownership of the country’s most successful club - one he started in 2006 - with immediate effect (as of Tuesday).

“As a founder, I have realised the limitations of having the board, I have noticed the club is so divided and very many minds at play without regard of the swimming child so I cannot see something I started get broken while I look on,” he wrote to club members in a statement that sparked off charged responses from, for and against, on the club’s communication channels.

Muwanguzi, who says he now acts as the club’s chief executive office and head of all technical decisions, knew he was playing with fire as Dolphins is now a registered company - limited by guarantee (owned by members) and without share capital - but he is all braced for it.

Different venues

“They (board) have failed to show direction, divided the club and have started to run different programs at different venues. Some swimmers pay the club subscription and other don’t. 

“It is sad but my decisions are to restore the integrity of this club as some of the things the leadership is doing borders on fraud. 

“Since they want to run to legal talk, I have asked for the minutes from the meeting that endorsed the transfer of ownership of this club from me to the board. 

But all these machinations show that people want to associate with our success yet their interests are far from those of the swimmers,” a tough-talking coach Muwanguzi told Daily Monitor.

Counter-accusation

The club board which is appointed from among the subscribing members, however, insist that after incorporation in April 2015, Dolphins acquired legal existence and is therefore separate and distinct from all its members. This would mean that, the power to appoint or dismiss directors would be left to the club’s general assembly. 

“We all felt the adverse effects of Covid-19. We lost some pools which meant that we could not come back in one place easily when government lifted the ban of sports so we have different groups training from various locations.

What we see from our coach is him trying to exercise the power of an individual, which I think is something we moved away from when we became a company. We have had such fights before and they led to formation of clubs such as Seals (in 2013) which is why we decided to create this company. 

Although we later had some parents, who were actually board members moving to Silverfin Academy, we believe we have had the harmony and we can survive these current differences.

He (Muwanguzi) is coaching some of the swimmers at Hotel Africana right now and maybe after tasting the money and power of running his own activities, he is looking at doing more at club level,” one board member, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity “in order not to give the problem more relevance”, said.

Asset of a coach

However, even when there was no fight, Muwanguzi saw a number of his swimmers move to other clubs and sports, especially basketball, due to “the lack of direction” in the last one year. 

The other thing as our anonymous board members admitted is “maybe the reason we have not fired him yet” is that Dolphins, its swimmers and parents, cannot afford to lose Muwanguzi for all the success and experience he has mastered. “The club base is now at Africana and whoever does not come back, is simply saying they do not believe in my programme and are free to move on,” Muwanguzi said.

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