Author Archives: Ben Mwesigwa

Creative decisions would make UPL competitive.

The 2015-16 Azam Uganda Premier League (AUPL) season concluded on Friday 28th May 2016. The highlights were; KCCA FC winning its eleventh league title, U.R.A FC striker Robert Sentongo was the top scorer with 18 league goals, Sports Club Victoria University, Simba FC plus Maroons FC were relegated and that’s all, YES YOU READ IT RIGHT, that’s all that happened.

Sports journalists, UPL administrators and competitions committee officials at FUFA will give you a list of more highlights including another one that KCCA FC won just three of their last eight games before clinching the title with a 1-1 draw against cross-city rivals Express FC (championship winning form in a non-competitive league)

To an ordinary football fan in Uganda, getting to know the champion, relegated teams, and KCCA’s form before winning the league title would be news, one out of 20,000 football fans in Uganda would be able to tell the three mentioned highlights.

That the AUPL lacks competitiveness is not news anymore, without competitiveness it’s very hard for the media to have good stories to report about Ugandan football, without good media coverage it’s very hard to attract fans into the stadiums, without fans clubs cant have good sources of revenue, without good revenue for clubs there’s no money, that’s the cycle and story of the AUPL.

16 TEAMS IS A CROWD FOR A LEAGUE THAT’S STRUGGLING WITH LOW-QUALITY FOOTBALL

The standard of our football is still very low. What is the justification for having sixteen teams in our league? The number of teams in the AUPL should be gradually reduced from 16 to 12 teams. With fewer teams in a league, the sporting gap between teams is reduced, this increases competitiveness,

The Scottish Premiership has an incredibly creative 12 team league system designed to make it very competitive and at the same time increase the number of games played (just in case you were worried at the number of games played in a 12 team league).

These twelve teams play each opponent three times to make 33 games then after that part the league gets split into half, the top six teams compete for the trophy in a championship league while the bottom six clubs fight to avoid relegation by playing a further five games.

By the end of the league, its 38 games played. How competitive is it to make it into the top six? Does it make the SPL competitive? Definitely yes, because there’s a lot more to play for.

Vipers and KCCA FC battled for the AUPL title until it was decided on matchday 29. Those two teams will confess to the league’s competitiveness because they had something to play for but I wonder what JMC Hippos, Lweza FC, Bright Stars, Soana FC, Police FC, Sadolin FC and Bul FC (yes, those are the teams we have in the AUPL) had to play for the moment they realized that they couldn’t be relegated.

I can also imagine what they would have to play for if the AUPL had a top eight tournament, a cash prize breakdown based on merit or any other creative idea designed to make the league competitive.

WHAT DO CLUBS COMPETE FOR IN THE AUPL?

Imagine going for a 100-meter race against Usain Bolt and a samurai wrestler. Before the start of the race you all get paid a flat appearance fee of 100,000 United States Dollars, the only thing on your mind would be not to finish last then go home and enjoy your earnings. Would the race be competitive?

That is the exact setting of the AUPL, at the start of the season each team is guaranteed to earn 50 million Uganda shillings from league broadcasters Azam Television and that’s it.

The English Premier League prize payment breakdown is very creative, it brings out the most competitive edge in each team. 50% of the sponsorship fee is equally shared among all 20 teams, then 25% is paid on a merit basis. This is the best part because clubs are paid according to league position. 25% merit money starts with £1.23 million for the 20th placed club then increases by £1.23 million for every position all the way to top where champions will get £24.7 million.

If a team in the ninth position (earning 19,918,368) had a chance to win its last three games to leapfrog into 5th position (to earn 21,968,793), that would be an extra £4.92 million. Would a club compete for that? What a stupid question to ask. Is there a difference between a team finishing 9th and 5th in the AUPL?

Would a club in the AUPL fight hard to leapfrog from the 9th to 5th position? You don’t have to answer those two questions but now you get an idea why our league is not competitive, why most of the 240 games in the AUPL season are played for pride which makes the AUPL very vulnerable to match-fixing.
16 teams should have more than a league trophy and relegation to play for, UPL should be creative so that every team has something to play for.

FUFA HAS LED THE WAY WITH FJL, AUPL CAN DO FAR MUCH BETTER

Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) made the FUFA Juniors’ League (FJL) very competitive by coming with up with a very simple idea that every team that scores more than two goals earns an extra point for each extra goal scored. This simple but creative decision ensured that every game played in the FJL had a lot at stake.

The SportPesa Kenya Premier League with its Top Eight tournament, the UEFA Champions League cash prize breakdown system, the Belgian Jupiler League and the Premier Soccer League of South Africa with its Q-innovative system are all examples of how creative ideas can make a league very competitive.

2015-16 AUPL champions, KCCA FC will represent Uganda in the 2017 CAF Champions League, they’ll find it very competitive yet they haven’t been prepared for that level of competitiveness because of a less competitive league. UPL usually helps teams that have continental engagements by postponing league fixtures but the REAL HELP should come in the form of being creative to make UPL competitive. It’s only then that KCCA FC and future UPL champions will be able to qualify for the group stage of the CAF champions’ league, which pays a lot.

With higher levels of competitiveness, you get better players, with better players you get quality matches which increases the number of fans in stadiums. With more fans in stadiums, clubs would make more money from gate collections and be able to attract sponsors to earn more revenue. The cycle gets bigger and better.

League organizers all over the world constantly meet to review how to make their respective leagues more competitive. Football fans usually discuss ideas like head to head, play-offs, Europa league winner qualifying for champions league e.t.c All these twists are meant to make the league/tournament more competitive. UPL C.E.O Benard Bainamani and his board have the power to make the AUPL competitive through implementing creative ideas.

Challenges are solved through creativity which in turn pays a lot.

A competitive league markets itself to sponsors. Football can’t attract money at the start BUT through creative decisions, we can generate revenue that would be needed to develop Ugandan football in the long run. UPL as a major stakeholder in Ugandan football has the power in their creative minds to change and develop Ugandan Football.

Parent is the first football coach.

A parent is the first teacher, sounds too obvious.

In football, a parent the first coach, now you must be wondering, how?

Becoming a professional footballer is a dream for most young people worldwide, and parents too because being a professional football rewards a lot.

It’s not just the healthy pay but being paid to do what you’re passionate about is the best feeling of dreams turning into reality, it’s incomparable and of course, playing football comes with its added advantages of better health, traveling the globe, building well-networked connections and gaining more knowledge.

In developed societies, parents introduce children to football as early as three years of age while in underdeveloped countries like Uganda, the most common age of introduction to formal coaching is between 12 years old to 15 years of age.

As a youth football coach, when I settle down to plan a coaching session to teach players in the development phase, I usually plan to teach them the technical aspects of the game that any footballer should be able to execute basics like; passing, receiving, tackling, travelling with the ball, throwing, shooting and heading the ball however, in practice the whole planned session doesn’t work out, it practically gets dumped on the pitch.

COACHING PLAN SHOULD BE USED. WHY DOES IT GET DUMPED ON THE PITCH?

Getting players in order to be coached becomes increasingly difficult, they easily get distracted and lack concentration, don’t have respect for teammates and officials, always talkative, can’t follow basic instructions, and get easily agitated over the most minor of referee decisions, hold grudges and revenge to hurt and injure teammates, when in the wrong they can’t apologize and don’t even know how to apologize, they thrive more on excuses than reasons, they claim to need a lot of motivation, can’t communicate effectively, very poor at keeping and managing time BUT the major one has got to be a total lack of confidence and the lack of genuine passion for playing football.

If all these habits and behaviors were from players under 12 years then it WOULD be understandable but in my experience with Ugandan players aged between 15-17 years and even worse with adult players, you get into a senior team training session and it’s very much like a nursery class. It’s all too frustrating until you realize that none of the players is bothered at all, it’s all very normal to them, they don’t intend to be that way BUT weren’t taught by their parents how to behave.

Maroons Junior team had lost 5-0 to Villa Jogoo Young in our last game of the 2015-16 FUFA Juniors’ League (FJL) it was an away match so on our journey back, I was very disappointed with our performance but it’s not only the poor performance that was getting to me because I know young players lack consistency and my slogan to them is next time better.

I gathered them up and asked each one of them to define common sense, they each came up with a definition that we dismissed based on example. We couldn’t get a concrete definition (if you have it please post it in the comments section) but got basic examples like; we don’t believe that there’s any culture in the world where people have lunch or dinner while squatting on top of tables, then on realizing that we were on the same page I told them that when we report back for training in preparation for the next season, our first coaching session will be LEARNING and APPLICATION of common sense (parents, please do your role).

Initially, the players didn’t like the idea because they claimed everybody has common sense but within a minute of mentioning, I kept on picking out actions that showed a lack of common sense, by the end of our journey we had identified about five moments that proved a serious lack of common sense among the squad.

HOW THEN DOES A PARENT BECOME THE FIRST COACH?

Football clubs will start considering players for professional ranks between the ages of 14-18 years old. Players have to go through academies and all kinds of underage football being coached.

To make it that far they need to be taught how to maintain high levels of concentration, how to respect teammates and officials, how to solve basic problems, to embrace challenges, being disciplined, taking responsibility for their actions and outcomes, being able to work in a team and to have teamwork, proper personal hygiene, having the ability to motivate themselves, have confidence that has to be differentiated from arrogance, high level of self-esteem, being straight forward and honest, should be able to take criticism, should be taught patience, they should be able to get over losses and poor performances, should be able to persevere, have the confidence to learn through making mistakes (how many Ugandans can do that?), have knowledge of performing first aid, know proper nutrition, know how to rest, should be taught how to set achievable goals, should be taught how to manage income and to have basic etiquette.

The Podcast

As a parent you MUST endeavor that you teach children how to be able to live and interact with other people because at some point in their lives they will have to live on their own or with other people, as footballers they will need to interact with teammates, officials, fans/supporters, opponents, and sponsors but the most challenging part is when they interact with coaches to be taught how to play. Will they be ready for a coach to get on with teaching the technical part of the game? Or football coaching time will have to be sacrificed to get them prepared (that would be a selfish act on the rest of the team).

As a parent, you are the first coach because you have to instill all these values in children. If a child can’t be confident in your presence as a parent then how will they execute the basic skills required to play football while being watched by thousands of fans?

At the moment we have got a lot of youngsters who lack passion and commitment, we have footballers who play like they are forced to, they never got to enjoy the fun part of the sport while growing up, training is like a punishment to them. When they are given a break, they take it as a get out of jail pardon.

As a parent you need to be the number one supporter of your child, monitor them to ensure that with time they develop the values you instill in them, know the profession they want to pursue and get started. 12 years is a beginning for you as a parent to teach basic values so that coaches can take over and deliver what they are paid to do best.

PARENTS FOR PROFESSIONALS

Almost every professional footballer with parents will always be grateful to their parents first because they recognize the effort and responsibility that was used to get them that far, so as a parent you need to look in the mirror because your actions will make or break your child’s dream of making it as a professional.

The values you teach your child to act as a foundation for them to set up the goals required to achieve their desired vision.

As a development level football coach, I am more than grateful to all those parents that have well-groomed children. It’s because of your hard work that I get to be the football coach that uses my session to work out as planned.

As a parent, before you complain about the state of our football. Have you done your part as a parent?

FUFA Should Use a Flexible Player Licensing System to Develop Football Players

A players’ license is a form of identification issued to a club for registered players. For clubs participating in tournaments that are under the supervision of the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) the players’ license is issued by FUFA.

In the current format, when a player is licensed to play in one league then they are ineligible to play in a different league. A player licensed to play in the Azam Uganda Premier League (AUPL) can’t turn up for a different team in the Big League which makes obvious sense.

At the start of the 2015-16 AUPL season, FUFA came up with a brilliant idea of starting up the FUFA Juniors’ League (FJL) as the U-17 league and since the U-17 league is supervised by FUFA, FJL registered players had to acquire licenses.

Playing in the FJL automatically disqualifies the youngsters from representing their senior teams in any other FUFA supervised competition.
One of the one thousand ways in which FUFA can promote the development of footballers in Uganda is by adopting a flexible player licensing system.

A player licensed to represent Maroons Junior team in the FJL should be able to represent Maroons FC in the AUPL. In this way, clubs don’t have to rush promoting junior players but can always field them or even have them as substitutes to motivate them and to reward them for good performances.

How exactly does that work out in player development? I was watching an English Premier League (EPL) match between Everton and Bournemouth, it was match day 35 Everton were playing for pride, then in the 87th minute with Everton leading 2-1 Ross Barkley’s number was up for substitution, the player coming on was an 18-year-old, the name? Kieran Dowell. I had no idea who this player was but the commentator and fans seemed to know him very well. As he came on to a standing ovation the commentator saved my ignorance when he mentioned that he had scored a superbly well-taken hat trick in a midweek U-21 league fixture against Leicester City.

EPL clubs register 25 players so I highly doubt Dowell was registered to feature in the EPL, I highly doubt his player license reads that. For Dowell to play three minutes against Bournemouth, he must have trained with the senior squad for about five days, does that develop him a player? Definitely yes.

It got better for Dowell on matchday 38 of the 2015-16 EPL season, yet again Everton was playing for pride as they hosted Norwich. Dowell made his full EPL debut and had a man of the match performance as he made two assists. Kieran Dowell is most likely going to have a bright future as a professional footballer. He will most likely become a first-team player in the 2016-17 season for Everton based on his end of season performance because he got a chance to show and prove his ability.

He got that chance because the flexible player licensing system used by the English Football Association gives provision for a player who started the season as a U-18 league player to end the season with an EPL appearance.

The FA in England will benefit too because the experience Kieran Dowell picks up from training and playing against seasoned internationals makes him a better player should he feature for the English U-18 national team.

As I was writing this article I saw the news flash that Marcus Rashford had been named in England’s 26 man Euro 2016 provisional squad. He got there because of the performances and goals in the matches he played for Manchester United. He got into the Manchester United squad because of injuries to senior players. Was he licensed to play in the EPL at any point in the season? I highly doubt, especially when you consider that he made his first appearance for Manchester United in February 2016 when the transfer window and registration windows had closed. Rashford went on to score eight goals, which was a massive step in his development as a striker.

Liverpool have had a Europa league run to the final, they had to rest players for league games, so youngsters like Ojo, Smith, Stewart, Brannagan, and Flanagan all got game time. On matchday 38 in the EPL, West Bromwich Albion was hosting Liverpool when Sergi Canos made his Liverpool debut, the commentator mentioned that he had spent the entire season on loan at Brentford, I was in shock how a player could represent one club then turn up for a different club in a league tournament. Was Canos licensed to represent Liverpool in a space of one week? Hell no. I still highly doubt that these youngsters are licensed to play in the EPL.

FUFA should start a flexible player licensing system that allows players belonging to a particular club to be open to representing the club at any time in any league tournament as long as the player has a license. The player’s license should be able to show which league he can play in. I guess for Kieran Dowell’s case he can play in the U-18 league, U-21 league and EPL for Everton.

Back here in Uganda, at the start of the second round of the 2015-16 AUPL, KCCA FC promoted Kikonyogo and Poloto from their U-17 team but because of a rigid player licensing system, KCCA FC can’t have them play in both FJL and AUPL, forcing KCCA FC to make a tough choice. I highly doubt these two youngsters developed as footballers because they hardly got any game time with the senior team and missed representing their U-17 team which went on to be runners up in the FJL.

In Uganda, we have had countless cases of highly rated youngsters fading into the unknown. Young players need to be with peers to maintain high levels of confidence, they can then be slowly integrated into the senior team with cameo appearances as they continue to play underage football.

To avoid rushing youngsters into top flight football, a flexible player licensing system is required so that highly rated youngsters like Kikonyogo and Poloto can be part of KCCA’s FJL team and also be able to make it to the senior team line up when needed. That way they wouldn’t miss out on FJL game time which is vital for their development as footballers.

At Maroons FC we got relegated on matchday 27 of the AUPL after a 3-2 loss away against Soana. As I write this blog, we have two league games to go but how I wish our U-17 players were eligible to represent Maroons in the AUPL. We would invite the youngsters to train with the senior team players, their presence would rejuvenate the whole atmosphere around the club because young players bring raw passion and enthusiasm to the game. Fans love seeing young players being given a chance.

The pick of the bunch are; Solomon Okello, Musa Senoga, Boris Onegi, Vincent Abigaba and Arafat Sentongo, playing two games in the AUPL would be an invaluable experience for these young players.

As a club, we would have created a moment that these youngsters would never forget, these youngsters would bring out a competitive attitude because senior team players wouldn’t want to lose their first team slots to youngsters but most importantly they would have a massive step in their development as footballers.

Its high time FUFA changed player licensing regulations so that players licensed to play in FJL are open to representing their parent clubs in the AUPL because the benefits are all too obvious.

Winning or development?

As an U-17 football coach at Maroons FC, do I look to winning or development?

Do I look to both winning and development or its about success from development.

According to the English dictionary, winning is coming first in a contest, In football its self explanatory, it’s being a champion and collecting a trophy from a tournament in which you have participated in.

As I explained in my previous article entitled “player development“, football development is an improvement in the QUALITY of a players’ skills.

Success is obtaining what you set to achieve or what you aim at.

In Uganda like any other country in the world we are obsessed with winning, who isn’t?

The problem though is that we take winning to a different level, we want to win at the earliest stage possible.

We have unnecessary competition and we do everything possible to create short cuts for winning which all back fires at the most important stage and we lose miserably, create panic situations then we become serial losers.

When a child starts going to school, we hold their hands and make them cross the road.

This keeps on happening everyday, every time so the kids get used to crossing while looking up, down and some even run, we never take the time to teach them how to understand and learn the art of crossing the road so that at one point in life they can be able to do it independently.

It’s not that we don’t want to teach them but we think it’s faster if we help them cross the road all the time.

As time passes you find many cases of grown up people who dread crossing roads or cases of kids who get knocked down when parents send them to the shops.

The same thing happens the exact way in Ugandan football, when we get to under age football we prefer to win at all costs by using over age players in football development tournaments.

Matches are most times won at all costs sacrificing the football development of individuals.

“A win is a win they say”, problem is that during that time, we don’t take the effort to teach these footballers how to learn and develop the basics required to play football at the highest level.

We get tournaments in which there’s absolutely nothing to lose, then we play them like our lives depend on it!

We sometimes win but don’t learn, the same mentality is used in training sessions and friendly games.

We (coaches) never give young footballers the chance to learn and develop as footballers and human beings.

As you sit in the house and wait for the kid you sent out to the shops, you don’t even have the presence of mind to think that you never taught the kid how to cross a road, you never tested them, you never gave them a chance to learn and develop the ability to safely cross the road.

We send teams into qualification and don’t think back that we have never taught footballers how to pass and keep possession, how to cross the ball in the right areas, how to utilize set pieces but we expect a win, we expect qualification.

What have we done differently at Maroons FC U-17?

We believe that winning at all costs is not the priority.

We also believe that we can win AFTER development and we have success stories to attest to that.

We have set up a football syllabus for our U-17 football team.

They learn and develop at each and every topic that we teach, our success comes from them learning and being able to perform the topic we have covered and when they execute it during a match in a pressure environment then it’s success for us.

We are doing this because we believe that Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) has set up the right platform for teaching, testing and developing our U-17 football team.

We are using the FUFA Juniors’ League to develop our young footballers so that when they grow up, we shall be able to “send them to the shops/schools because they will have attained the confidence to do so by themselves”.

They will WIN because of the effort we used to DEVELOP them and hopefully, our SUCCESS as Maroons Football Club will continue to grow to greater heights.

Time will tell.

Football Player Development in Uganda

Player development is the improvement in the quality of football skills.

It’s supposed to be done between the ages of 6 years through to 16 years.

In Uganda we have very few cases of fully developed complete footballers because we make the mistake of separating football/sports from life.

For someone to become a doctor in Uganda, you study nursery for 3 years where you are taught how to speak, read and write.

In primary school, you are introduced to various subjects and this takes 7 years. Secondary education lasts 6 years split into 4 years of some details then 2 high level years of specific scientific subjects.

At university, you study 5 years of medicine then graduate to become a doctor.

The whole education process takes a total of 21 years!

Compare that to football and you will find that we don’t have the nursery, primary, secondary and university version in football but we want to make it and become professional footballers.

Why then do we give football less attention?

It is because we don’t believe that the process of developing a footballer is as demanding as that of a doctor and other professions.

Next case, when a child is born they go through a process of learning how to sit, crawl, walk, cross the road et cetera until they become independent enough to be able to do most of these things on their own.

The process takes time, mistakes will happen during this process and it’s generally expected by any parent as part of a child’s growth but when it comes to football, we don’t want accord it the same credence we give to other professions.

Professional players in Uganda who didn’t get the same 21 years of study the child who graduated to become a doctor was subjected to are not permitted to make mistakes at any level which is unrealistic.

Footballers who play at the highest levels of the game still have to be remote controlled on how to play during a match.

Decisions are made for them through coaching instructions because their coaches don’t trust them to be able to execute the” basics” of the game.

This is because the players didn’t go through the proper learning curve in football that is equivalent to sitting, crawling, walking, writing, reading and crossing the road.

Thanks to the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) for setting up an U-17 league this year.

They at FUFA have taken the first step in addressing player development and while it will be a long road to walk before change can be seen, it’s undoubtedly the right move.

We at Maroons Football Club decided to groom and develop our Under 17 players in the same manner a mother grooms a child.

The policy is strict as no player above 17 years is permitted to play for the under 17 team.

When they turn 18 years of age, we transition them to the reserve team or loan them to other teams in lower divisions in order to further their development until they are “good enough” to play for the first team.

In essence, we don’t separate football from life. The two are looked at as one.

Players are allowed the freedom to express themselves, learn through making mistakes in training and on the pitch and most importantly encourage them the autonomy to make decisions during matches.

We, the coaches at Maroons FC work tirelessly to ensure that players mature in all four aspects of football; tactically, technically, psychologically and player conditioning.

With these 4 aspects, we believe we can nourish and develop complete professional footballers.