Fufa Drum tourney: Nyakoojo's tears should not go unnoticed

For a Fufa administration that not only holds power almost in perpetuity but is also uniquely skilled at manipulating the active players around it, the rockstar prestige bestowed upon its Drum tournament is a few notches beyond terrifying. 

Waxing lyrical about the tournament has become the qualifying threshold for officials from the local football governing body. The tenor of their remarks builds into a crescendo whose verdict is that the federation's pet project is the best thing since sliced bread. But is this really the case?

What purpose does the Fufa Drum tournament serve in the grand scheme of things? Ugandan football yet again found itself asking this question with no immediate answer. This followed an unfortunate if dramatic turn of events. More on this shortly.

From the outset, this column greeted the Fufa Drum tournament with fierce displeasure. Your columnist continues to hold that the tournament mirrors Fufa’s top brass in its lack of direction and substance. I have previously argued that the conceptualisation of the Fufa Drum was devoid of either common sense or sophistication.

Despite pulling in the crowds, what can be stated firmly is that the Fufa Drum tournament is damaging to the seasoned players it banks on. The extravagant use of this breed of players means that the canonical importance of the Drum to Ugandan football has yet to be more widely recognised.

Scheduling matches during an active season, more over on desperately poor playing surfaces, means that players have to always prepare for the worst. Something of the gravest nature is always a heartbeat away, a decent payday for the player in question notwithstanding.

And so was the case last weekend. Benjamin Nyakoojo fractured his left leg during a match between Tooro Province and Busoga Province. Nyakoojo had just been named amongst the dozen defenders in Paul Put's provisional Cranes squad for the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers against Guinea and Somalia. This came hot on the heels of promising displays with newly-promoted outfit Kitara in Uganda's top flight football league.

Any awkwardness of why a private moment of sheer pain was shared on social media was put aside by Nyakoojo's genuine grief in the ambulance. Having been a physical and intellectual presence at the heart of Kitara FC's defence during The Royals' explosive start to the 2023/2024 Uganda Premier League season, Nyakoojo more than merited his Cranes call up. It, however, seems hard to imagine that he will ever get a chance to audition for a Cranes role. 

Yet do not expect any residual guilt to surface, not least from the organisers of the Fufa Drum tournament. Nyakoojo's injury will be reduced to nothing more than a freak incident as the tournament's organisers continue to flash insincere smiles. In fact, the tournament will continue to be vigorously defended with brutal but not terribly insightful honesty.

It is important, dear reader, to understand why this is indeed the case. The tournament is evidently a tour de force insofar as collecting money from the 'turnstiles' is concerned. No-one is pained by how much it takes away from players either through injury or worse still the multiple spasms of fatigue.

It is, however, an enormous mistake for Fufa to treat its single most important human resource—players—as a means to an end. There’s something unavoidably primal about handling your single most important human resource in a productive manner. Fufa, which is currently full of catastrophic confidence, cannot continue to pay this undisputed fact not the slightest attention. A valuable lesson ought to be learned from Nyakoojo's tears.