Fufa would do well to borrow a leaf from netball on handling transitions

July is here and its maiden week has already brought a stark contrast into plain view. What has sharply come into focus is how the conceptualisation of a transition arouses fears in one sports federation and fascination in another.

Something of a dirty word in the country’s realm of politics, the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) has through a mixture of tenacity and good fortune made a fist of dealing with transitions.

This has not gone unremarked and partly explains why despite, or in fact because of, losing stalwarts like Peace Proscovia and Stella Oyella the She Cranes are still expected to be competitive at this month’s Netball World Cup.

The national senior women’s netball team will figure in its fourth World Cup when the global showpiece gets underway in Cape Town, South Africa, at the backend of this month.

Fred Mugerwa's shrewdness over the years has meant that he cannot, despite the best efforts of his enemies, be accused of doing a poor job of sustaining the careers of many netball players. The man who beat the odds to help a cash-strapped She Cranes qualify for the 2015 World Cup has particularly proved adept at running the rule over transitions. 

After his return from purgatory coincided with the removal of coronavirus pandemic curbs, Mugerwa soon found that he had his work cut out. He nevertheless caught the eye whilst calling the shots during the 2022 Fast5 Netball World Series in New Zealand. This came several years after it became clear that UNF wanted nothing to do with him following orders from the world governing body. 

During his second coming, Mugerwa has wasted no time in demonstrating an ability to think on his feet. With a number of old hands unavailable for varying reasons, the veteran coach needed to switch things up. He did just that by judiciously using upstarts like Irene Eyaru, Shadiah Nassanga, Margret Baagala, Christine Namulumba, Falidah Kadondi, and Norah Lunkuse at both the 2022 Fast5 Netball World Series and 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The pick of Uganda's matches during the 2022 Commonwealth Games was a hard-fought 54-48 win over South Africa that secured a fifth place finish. This was no small beer especially for a team that had over the years lost stalwarts like Ruth Meeme, Halima Nakachwa, and Rachael Nanyonga.

While the She Cranes are not blind to the hazards of being shorn of the experience of the likes of Proscovia and Oyella, they remain quietly confident ahead of the Cape Town trip. The confidence owes much to their excellent track record in dealing with that little dirty word—transition. This is no mean feat not least because handling transitions is a job for which the vast majority of Ugandans are peculiarly ill-suited. And your columnist is not just talking about politicians here. 

As Mugerwa this week set himself a minimum target of emerging unscathed from a World Cup group that has New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago as well as Singapore, Uganda's top football officials slept off excesses of a feast. This followed Fufa's convening of a workshop in which the local football governing body was desirous of “shaping a comprehensive and strategic technical plan for our nation's football.”

It is the hope of all well-meaning Ugandans that after interspersing discussions in Njeru by eating and drinking sumptuously, Fufa will finally hold out something palatable for Ugandan football fans.

Since 2019, the senior men’s national football team has stood as an ugly reminder of how not to handle a transition. The team has notoriously failed to move on from the Geoffrey Massa generation. Hardheaded cynicism and political calculation have all played some part in the mystifying outcome of what this column loves to call a “forever transition.” 

Each time the Cranes perform dismally, which is most of the time, the excuse of a transition morphs into a handy pretext for Fufa. It is presented as an object lesson in resonance, rather than in direct influence. Thankfully, the She Cranes have offered the clearest example yet that a transition is not exactly rocket science. 

Hopefully, Fufa will finally manage to crack the code after convening a stakeholder’s meeting that addressed itself to the merits of a long game. Transitions ought not to be handled gingerly. Above all, there should be a single-minded pursuit to make them time-bound.