Author Archives: Ben Mwesigwa

The 5C’s of Football

Football performance is affected by four major factors; technical ability being converted into a skill in the presence of opponents, Tactical ability by being able to make the right decisions, physical ability by the body being able to perform football-specific movements and mental ability being strong enough to enable players to perform well.

The mental ability has many factors that are mainly affected by the 5C’s, these are; confidence, communication, control, commitment, and concentration.

These 5C’s can’t be isolated, they are interrelated.

It’s very important for football coaches working with developing players to plan training sessions that will help players to develop the 5C’s that help improve the mental strength of players.

Football coaches must explain to parents how they play an important part in the development of the 5C’s because it takes a very long time developing them.

Concentration:
Describes the player’s ability to focus their attention on the right thing at the right time.

At a high level, a football match is very competitive and lasts 90 minutes, each minute on the pitch can have up to 30 situations that require a different action.

That translates into 2,700 situations that require consistent concentration for the different actions as a team, within 90 minutes.

Concentration is not limited to 90 minutes but in training sessions, before the match, and after the match.

Commitment:
Describes how the player is motivated.

It’s very important for developing players to be taught how to have a genuine passion for football.

Genuine passion helps to have intrinsic motivation which helps the player to overcome challenges that would deter them from playing football.

Football coaches should praise effort and attitude over the outcome as a way to recognize that players are committed.

For example; If any footballer is going to make it to the top level, the motivation should be from within the player, the rest like parents and coaches can only support the player and offer extrinsic motivation.

If the extrinsic motivation is greater than intrinsic motivation, then commitment levels will be lower.

Confidence:
Describes the player’s self-belief in their ability to achieve goals.

Confidence comes from knowing.

Developing players should be encouraged to express themselves and that making mistakes is part of the learning process to mastering football skills.

There’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance.

It’s very important that coaches observe when over confidence might make players complacent.

Football coaches should help players to build confidence by creating a no failure environment.

Control:
Describes how well a player can control and manage their emotions.

Emotions arise out of good times like winning a match, scoring a goal and being on form or bad times like poor referee decisions, conceding a goal, losing a match and being out injured.

Coaches can help players to improve their ability to control and manage emotions by highlighting negative emotional reactions like anger, self-criticism, poor body language, negative thoughts, blaming others, etc.

Communication:
Describes how a player uses eyes, ears, and mouth to take in and give out information from the game, coaches, teammates, officials, and opponents.

Communication is an important skill in football because the decisions made in football arise out of the ability to communicate verbally or non-verbally.

Coaches should help developing players to have effective communication by recognizing and praising players that demonstrate good communication like looking over the shoulders while off the ball, acknowledging and listening to teammates and coaches, using peripheral vision, looking up while on the ball, etc.

Football coaches should role model the 5C’s by using good and bad examples within football to increase awareness of the importance for each of the 5C’s.

Engage players in game situations that test the 5C’s skills under pressure.

Publicly praise players that demonstrate the 5C’s as a skill or behavior.

It’s important to emphasize that at a high level, all players have excellent technical, tactical and physical attributes to perform well but having mental strength with the 5C’s keeps the best at a high level for a longer time.

Bias in Ugandan football.

In 2009, I worked at a financial institution that went on to post obscene profits in their financial year results.

When management called for a meeting, every employee expected to have a good meeting. To their shock, management was very worried about the performance, they were sure something better needed to be done to improve or else they faced collapsing due to increased competition in that sector.

The research was conducted to objectively analyze that given the human resource at their disposal, they should be doing far much better irrespective of posting very healthy financial year results.

Poor service was identified as the major problem, this led to massive efforts into improving the quality of service.

Over the following ten years, the institution has greatly improved service and survived cut-throat competition to stay in business, unlike many other financial institutions within that same period.

In football psychology, there are two major forms of bias; confirmation bias and outcome bias.

Confirmation bias is where people seek information that supports their opinion, rather than looking for objective information and using flexible thinking to adjust their opinion based on facts and fair analysis.

An example of confirmation bias in Ugandan football is our thinking that a league should have more than 16 teams, it’s an opinion shared by many people involved in Ugandan football.

In our thinking, the more teams in the league, the higher the chances of having teams from more regions hence football development.

However, when you place the facts on the requirements to have a successful 16 team league, there’s glaring evidence that we would struggle with an eight-team league.

Outcome bias is when an incorrect decision ends up with a positive outcome at that moment, so we believe the decision is now correct.

An example of outcome bias in Ugandan football is the different wins or tournament appearances from clubs or national teams.

The majority of these are as a result of things (age cheating, luck in fixtures) that can’t be sustainable in the long run.

From those two explanations, it’s very easy to see how these forms of bias affect the development of football in Uganda because we are a society that only looks at results without a genuine assessment of how we got there.

Look around Ugandan football, it’s littered with very many other examples of confirmation bias and outcome bias.

The challenge with acquiring success through these forms of bias is that when you face a problem, it’s sometimes too late to find a solution.

See how a 16 team UPL in 2019 has struggled with pitches because of heavy rainfall and unplanned tournaments like The Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA)

One of the main factors that affect decision making in Ugandan football has got to be our inability to use effective forecasting which is a societal problem out of our upbringing.

As Ugandans, we generally prefer the short term happiness of how we feel at the moment (instant gratification) compared to how we feel later (delayed gratification).

If you told the Ugandan football community that having an eight-team league would buy time to develop the resources required (quality coaches, quality referees, quality facilities, competent administrators) to run a successful 20 team league, they would have you listed as crazy.

Recently, I was impressed when the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) started the take flight project in Women’s football. In this project, the Women’s Super League (WSL) was formed to be the top league with eight teams.

This came after Women’s football had posted impressive results in the 2018-19 season.

I am very sure that implementing “take flight” had a lot of challenges. Yes, it’s very demanding to work with eight amateur teams trying to become professional but can you imagine how harder it would have been working with 16 teams?

WSL will have its challenges. Poor officiating has already been raised as a concern by sections of the media but whatever challenges they face; it will take a shorter time to solve those problems.

Good to see that an objective decision was made to develop women’s football in Uganda because the people in charge used effective forecasting very well.

Hopefully, men’s football places its ego aside and borrows a leaf from Women’s football.

Futsal should learn from Ugandan football problems.

Futsal is an official form of football, 5 players per team on a small-sized pitch preferably indoors playing for 20 minutes each half.

Being an indoor game, many goals, less contact, fewer injuries, and unlimited rolling substitutions are some of the reasons it’s growing at a very high rate worldwide. Uganda hasn’t been left out of that growth.

The Futsal Super League (FSL) has been going on, with two official seasons under the organization of the Futsal Association of Uganda (FAU), the 2019-20 FSL season kicks off on Monday 28th October 2019 at the Lugogo Indoor Stadium.

During the 2019 Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) Annual Ordinary Assembly, FAU was admitted as a full member of FUFA recognized with the responsibility to manage and organize futsal in Uganda. That kind of authority comes with a lot of responsibilities.

FUFA was formed in 1924, five years away from making 100 years.

In that period, almost all of FUFA’s 34 members don’t have a corporate governance structure in place yet ironically FUFA practices fairly good corporate governance, at least for Ugandan standards.

Almost 100 years later, football in Uganda is not yet professional.

The Uganda Premier League (UPL) and the FUFA Big League (FBL) are supposed to be professional but that is on paper because we are too lenient to enforce the implementation of standards required to be professional.

Almost 100 years later, there’s no football club or FUFA member that is self-sustainable because we have failed to do simple things like understanding football administration and how football business works.

Almost 100 years later, we are going to celebrate a football centenary in which no football club owns a stadium (Kcca FC shouldn’t consider that thing as a stadium).

Almost 100 years later, we still have league matches that rarely kick off on time, still have physical inspections for licensed players, can’t have match attendance records, very weak competition regulations, lack meaningful match statistics for performance analysis, lack a match day countdown and generally lack creativity to solve basic problems.

Anyway, there must be something to celebrate about Ugandan football but not over 100 years. If it were me, that centenary would have a muted celebration then start all over again.

Almost 100 years later, the Futsal Association of Uganda is joining as a full member of FUFA that should learn from all FUFA members to avoid the problems that have been on repeat for the past 95 years.

120 out of 100 Ugandans believe that funding from government or sponsors is the only solution to solve football problems. They also believe that football owes them something and have a sense of entitlement on what FUFA should do for them.

Between August to October 2019, I was very unfortunate (pun intended) to be in charge of FSL’s 2019-20 club licensing.

In that period, I realized that a futsal club owner expects FAU or FUFA to have sponsors but that particular club owner can’t have 12 passport size photos (in soft copy) available in five working days.

In that scenario, it’s evident the majority of football stakeholders lack basic knowledge of how football operates, how they would benefit if the game was professional and how they can be supported to become successful.

The general lack of knowledge on how football would become professional makes them have a very negative attitude towards football leaders or member associations.

Indeed, Political Economic Social and Technology (P.E.S.T) factors have a huge influence on any institution. However, the P in FUFA members’ way too loud, very evident and negative for the development of football in Uganda.

If FUFA members had an AGM and that’s the time they were the most active in a year, that’s a very loud P.

WHAT SHOULD FAU DO?

Irrespective of the challenges FAU has at the moment, they should do the simple things that don’t require a lot of resources.

Involve all stakeholders, empower through training, make them understand what it means to be professional, set and enforce standards, have a strategic plan, demand quality, record all incidents to help with information on how to recover from mistakes, keep/manage time, be active throughout the year, be organized, make social media your second home, plan and research.

With all that in place, it will become easier to have genuinely professional football.

FAU’s huge responsibility is to do the simple things well.

Simplicity is genius!

UPL is crowded at 16.

At the end of the 2015-16 season, I thought that Uganda Premier League (UPL) needed to be reduced from 16 clubs to 12 clubs.

Six matches into the 2019-20 season, I am certain the number needs to be reduced from 16 clubs to eight clubs. It sounds strange, very strange because I would have expected UPL to have improved and manage to become a 20 club league.

An observation of the majority of the 20 club leagues that have a huge following shows they have QUALITY and QUANTITY personnel in the following areas; coaching, match officials, football administrators, and football support staff that are COMPETENT too.

Besides, they have the availability of quality training grounds and stadiums that can support a 20 team league of 38 match days translating into 380 matches.

All the mentioned factors that make a 20 club league successful, were built over time. They were not given.

WHAT ABOUT UPL?

Uganda doesn’t have anything that would justify having a 16 club league. To make it worse, clubs are entitled to be in UPL. Some clubs expect to be given financial support from the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) to help them operate.

The human resource capacity is extremely low, non-existent facilities mean that four venues are hosting 13 out of 16 clubs in the 2019-20 season.

Wankulukuku has hosted Express FC, Bright Stars FC, Wakiso Giants, and Tooro United.
Lugogo has hosted Kcca FC, Proline FC and soon Police FC.
Luzira pitch has hosted Maroons FC, Onduparaka FC, and Mbarara City FC
Namboole hosts URA FC, Sc Villa, and Kyetume FC

Extremely poor officiating, poor timekeeping, a congested and disorganized fixture, extremely low standards of footballers to an extent that almost every club in the UPL has an average of three players with pot bellies, poor quality coaching standards, absence of specialist football coaches, very weak club brands that causes low match attendance levels, non-existent performance analysis, poor standards of facilities and unethical football administrators have been some of the 2019-20 UPL highlights.

The 2019-20 UPL season has a close resemblance to an amateur corporate league. Most times, it didn’t feel like 2019 but a stone-age version of football.

Ugandan society tolerates mediocrity to an extent that, we celebrate low standards. With all that incompetence in UPL, we are either proud of the work done or go silent about poor quality because we are afraid of inconveniencing the people in charge.

UPL secretariat operates in a very harsh football environment but they can do something about it. It’s very disappointing that UPL seems to be resigned to, “we can’t do anything about it” attitude.

WHAT DOES UPL NEED?

UPL needs to be reduced from 16 to eight clubs so that quality and competent human resource can be built over time to sustain a 16 club league and probably 20 clubs in the future.

FUFA is currently doing a very good job in terms of developing human capacity with very many football courses but the numbers are not yet at a level that can sustain a 16 club league.

FUFA needs to have realized this by now then change the football pyramid structure to have clearly defined number of clubs that should be in UPL and lower leagues.

UPL needs to be in charge of its own club licensing program that would be supervised by FUFA. The current club licensing is a stale joke that lacks professionalism because its not full time.

UPL needs to have a five-year strategic plan shared with all football stakeholders. Perhaps, that will be the start of getting football administration basics right.

Be in charge of issues in their control like proper time keeping, have in place a match day countdown, a proper player and club officials licensing system and proper regulations that govern the league. Take care of simple things, the bigger things will fall in place.

If it were my decision to make, it would be eight clubs in UPL because I’d rather have UPL with 8 professional clubs than have 16 amateur clubs.

Don’t bother wondering about the number of matches, an 8 club league can still have the same number of matches as a 16 club league. All you need is CREATIVITY.

Naming football clubs in Uganda.

Football has three arms; business, technical and administration.

In business, getting a name right is key but that is something that most Ugandans don’t agree with perhaps an indication of low success rates in business.

Take a survey about most business names in Uganda, they either have a founder’s name, nickname or something that would struggle to become a brand name.

The same Ugandan principle of business naming is used in football. After all, football is a reflection of society.

Football clubs in Uganda struggle to attract and RETAIN football fans because of very weak brand names as a result of lacking professionalism and creativity during the process of getting a football club name.

Below is a group of two different league tables, take a look and decide which league would easily attract and retain fans.

TABLE ATABLE B
1 Vipers SC 1 Kitende FC
2 Maroons FC 2 Luzira FC
3 URA FC 3 Nagalama FC
4 Bright Stars FC 4 Kawanda FC
5 Police FC 5 Masindi FC
6 Gafford Asubo Ladies FC 6 Kyebando Ladies FC
7 She Corporates 7 Nakawa Ladies FC
8 UCU lady canons 8 Mukono Ladies FC
9 Aidenal School of Art 9 Entebbe Futsal Club
10 Park Futsal Club 10 Kyebando Futsal Club

Imagine having to sell match day tickets for a fixture between Maroons FC and URA FC. The only time such a fixture would attract fans is if one of the clubs involved had a hand in deciding a league champion. Does that sound similar to speculation?

On matchday one of the 2019-20 Uganda Premier League (UPL) URA FC vs Maroons FC was scheduled to be live on TV but wasn’t broadcast.

There’s no official reason for not having the match on TV but, can you imagine how many fans would watch that game? Both clubs don’t have loyal fans.

Imagine another scenario, if it were Nagalama FC vs Luzira FC. How many fans would be at that game?

Something ironic about Ugandans in football, we start football clubs then set up committees to brainstorm on how to attract sponsorship.

Same as having a league like Uganda Premier League (UPL), FUFA Women’s Elite League (FWEL), Futsal Super League (FSL) and FUFA Big League (FBL) they can only grow in value to easily attract more sponsors and partners if the clubs participating in those respective leagues have brand names.

Attracting sponsorship starts with having a fan base. It’s easier to attract and RETAIN a loyal fan when a club has a geographical location as a club name because that gives fans a sense of belonging.

FUFA’s HAND IN THIS
Federation Of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) is responsible for approving football club names or change of names.

If football is to develop in Uganda so that it can attract loyal fans then FUFA has a hand in this.

FUFA needs to come up with guidelines on accepted club names knowing it affects the valuation of any league because of the number of loyal fans attracted to each club.

In some countries, club licensing guidelines enforce for club names to include a geographical location as a part of a football club name.

Club naming guidelines should be in line with FUFA’s vision to be the number one football country in Africa both on and off the pitch.

As UPL, FWEL, FSL and FBL struggle to grow their value, have we thought about the clubs in those leagues?

Have we thought about a league being as valuable as the clubs in the league?

How valuable are Police FC, Maroons FC, URA FC, UPDF FC, Water FC, Park FC, She Corporates, Gafford Ladies and even Vipers SC?

With all due respect to them as institutions, they have almost zero value as football business because they can’t attract and RETAIN loyal fans that can be turned into members or customers.

Sc Villa, Express FC, and Proline FC have tried to build a brand name without basing on having a geographical name but success in that route takes many years of deliberate hard work.

Football as a business is unique in a way that it always offers a blueprint for success. It doesn’t have to be copy and paste but anyone running a football club can always have an example of success stories to refer to.

Football brands like Bayer Leverkusen, PSV Eindhoven, Red Bull Salzburg e.t.c. decided to use company names but still included a geographical location because they know that in football business, fans are the only source of sustainable income.

Sponsorship, gate receipts and sale of merchandise increase with number of fans but other football sources of income like player sales and prize money can’t be reliable or sustainable.

The geographical name makes it easy to identify and creates a sense of belonging for anybody that has interacted with that area as a tourist, student, business, place of birth or residence.

A professional business name is one of the foundations for succeeding in business.

The majority of football clubs in Uganda need to use geographical related names if they are to succeed in football business otherwise, they are living on wasted time.