UPL blockbuster, Uganda Open finale remind us what is, is not in good taste

If, like your columnist, you spent last Saturday indoors, the smart thing was always going to involve choosing between watching the Uganda Premier League and the last 18 holes of the 81st Uganda Amateur Golf Open. Spoilt for choice, yours truly ended up flipping through channels to get a taste of both worlds.

It was an undertaking that came at a price as I ended up poking halfheartedly at either. Whilst there were limits to my mood of contentment, I did manage to catch the decisive moments from both contests.

At the MTN Omondi Stadium, with half a dozen minutes played, KCCA’s Rogers Mato stooped to nonchalantly nod Allan Okello’s inviting delivery. Vipers’s rearguard—frozen and statuesque—waited for an offside flag that never shot up. Rightly.  

At the Lake Victoria Serena Resort & Spa in Kigo, Andrew Ssekibejja thrived in clutch situations down the stretch to land his maiden Open title. Michael Tumusiime’s hopes of pulling off a fairytale win ended when he was unsuccessful in avoiding the water hazard at the penultimate hole.

Besides producing a winner-loser binary, the sporting contests on either side of the capital had a satirical—if disturbing—edge to them. They shrewdly conveyed the strangeness in exercises of gamesmanship. In Kigo, Tumusiime found himself caught in a fog of resentment after a partisan home gallery broke a few unwritten rules in willing homeboy Ssekibejja over the line.

Golfers love using a reductionist approach that frames a contest between themselves and a golf course. This is largely because the gallery is expected to be a good sport. Tumusiime, however, found himself having to be pretty thick-skinned last Saturday. His veneer of composure finally cracked when he walked off No.17 with a triple bogey. Ssekibejja had the gallery to thank as much as the quicksilver Kigo course.

In Lugogo, Murushid Juuko ended up being the butt of all jokes after KCCA won an exhaustingly tight contest by the odd goal. The Vipers defender guaranteed this outcome after he used a waterbody metaphor prematch to not only take aim at a target but also make a mess of hitting it.

Whereas it is not unusual having players use their social media accounts to let off steam, having official club accounts go at each other—certainly the way KCCA’s and Vipers’s did post-match—was dismayingly provocative. It certainly left a nauseating taste in the mouths of many. And rightly so.

In dancing across the minefields of provocation on social media, the tiff KCCA had with Vipers  risked sparking the notoriety of their respective tribes. And, in a sense, it did. This left many questioning the relevance of taking to social media with the sole purpose of punching below the belt. The whole episode underscored the need of clubs putting in place social media policies that indicate what is and is not permissible.

Make no mistake, good-natured banter has the potential to electrify its intended audience(s). Its cultural significance has been known to transcend an impressive scope. It’s, however, a judgment call that can easily birth an unbeatable catastrophe. Hopefully lessons at either ends of the capital—in Lugogo and Kigo—have been learned about making judgment calls.