Tag Archives: Ugandan Football

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.

Forced Membership!

Uganda Football Coaches Association (UFCA) is a member of the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA).

UFCA struggled to attract coaches as members so they decided to find a way of having competition regulations amended in their favor to ensure that football coaches involved in FUFA organized tournaments pay membership fees to be granted a practicing license.

Like all decisions that aren’t well thought out, it wasn’t sustainable because the number of coaches licensed to work is far less than the actual number of coaches.

UFCA came up with another idea. They are proposing to ensure that every time a coach has to go for an advanced coaching course, fully paid membership with UFCA will be one of the criteria used to be admitted into the course.

Again another decision that isn’t well thought out. It won’t be sustainable because there’s usually a two-year gap between coaching courses and the majority of coaches drop out of courses.

UFCA has failed to invest time into finding out why they struggle to attract members, they resort to hijacking them into forced membership.

UFCA has failed to take responsibility for low membership numbers, they resort to blaming coaches for lacking solidarity.

WHY IS UFCA STRUGGLING TO ATTRACT MEMBERS?

For any person to be a paid member of any association, they need value in return for what is being paid. It’s that simple.

UFCA offers no value or struggles to offer any meaningful value to its members. If they did that, current members would have a lot of positives to share.

There’s a time I wanted to join UFCA, I was invited for a meeting that started with a debate about drinks, after 45 minutes of the debate, I’d had enough and left football coaches debating about drinks.

It’s almost 10 years since that incident, basing on observations from current UFCA members. I highly doubt I’ve missed anything from UFCA that adds value to me as a football coach.

WHAT SHOULD UFCA DO BETTER?

Corporate governance is the solution for UFCA. UFCA can adopt a system of governance that members use to vote a board of directors that appoints an executive to run the day to day business of the association.

In modern football business, if any football institution is interested in being self-sustainable then it’s imperative to have employees that work full time to think of ways to make the institution better.

Good governance is essential for a football institution to be managed effectively and to demonstrate accountability and transparency.

Values are at the core of good governance, but it is brought to life by leadership, direction, and supervision, by the people who have the right skills and experience for their role.

By adopting principles of good governance, it will benefit UFCA in terms of engaging the trust of all stakeholders.

Good governance will not in itself ensure success, but it should improve UFCA’s management, support its reputation, and most importantly, help secure UFCA’s future and its sustainability.

Example: In Uganda, most coaches aged 30 and above struggle with computer literacy and a low command of the English language that causes language barrier and interpretation issues but those coaches are more than capable of coaching very well.

With a well thought out structure, UFCA would have a technical director that understands the needs of those coaches.

The technical director can draft a syllabus that enables coaches to be trained on how to be computer literate then organize internal coaching courses in a language they understand so that by the time they attend the mandatory English version of the course, it’s a matter of understanding the interpretations.

That’s one of the many problems faced by coaches in Ugandan football, finding solutions to solving problems by coaches would be the kind of value addition any coach needs hence enabling UFCA to attract members.

Over to you at UFCA.

Disclaimer: The writer has nothing against being a UFCA member.

Sacrifice football players.

There’s a saying in football that all decisions made have to be central to the players. Football players are very important stakeholders in football.

Before I get misunderstood, that doesn’t mean other stakeholders like; referees, administrators, media, fans, and coaches don’t have an important role to play in football. They are very important, without them, the game can’t go on.

For any football decision to be made, the priority should be footballers then other football stakeholders will benefit from that decision.

Example; When FIFA introduces a water break during matches, players are the priority in that decision but other stakeholders benefit.

Match officials will get an opportunity to cool off, take water and perhaps have a simple chat about the progress of the game.

Football players being key and central in all decisions seems to be the way things should be done but not in Uganda.

HOW ARE FOOTBALL PLAYERS SACRIFICED IN UGANDAN FOOTBALL?

The majority of footballers in Ugandan football have their health sacrificed due to limited resting arising from the number of matches they get involved in.

Uganda Premier League (UPL), Uganda Cup, Super 8, ODILO and The Drum football tournament are some of the tournaments.

At the end of the 2018-19 season, there was a high number of players that were involved in league/cup matches on a Friday then played in The Drum football tournament matches on a Sunday.

That means a player was involved in two matches in a space of three days but when you work out the number of hours, playing at 4 pm on Friday then 4 pm on Sunday means they played two matches in a space of 48 hours.

When other factors like weather conditions, poor playing facilities, poor nutrition, the distance between match venues, the poor physical condition of players, etc. all come in then it’s a recipe for player burn out or poor health conditions after retirement.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse. ODILO national championships, a U-14 football tournament organized by FUFA will have teams playing three matches in a space of 4 days.

How many Ugandan footballers have rested since the 2018-19 season ended? Many players were involved in The Drum football tournament, COSAFA, CECAFA, CHAN qualifiers and then Super 8 in the offseason.

With CAF Champions’ league and UPL all coming up, fingers crossed they won’t be limping by January 2020 if Uganda Cranes qualifies for CHAN 2020.

Football players indeed need to get involved in many tournaments and matches to gain experience but for that to happen, other conditions like the quality of playing infrastructure, quality nutrition, quality of travel between matches, good fitness levels, etc. have to be met.

This being Uganda we went for the copy and paste version of exposing footballers to many matches in a short time without considering other factors.

Does that explain why 95% of footballers that play within Uganda lack consistency?

The majority of footballers in Ugandan football have their income sacrificed because clubs don’t honor contracts.

Most players go unpaid for an entire second round of the league then end up being released at the end of the season.

This’ usually done by clubs that are struggling to perform on the pitch because they know players will leave after not being paid then save money to contract new players.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE?

Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) and UPL as the organizers of major tournaments in Uganda football need to identify individuals with technical knowledge of football then have them trained on how to handle fixtures and start involving them in decisions to do with fixtures.

It’s true that other factors like pitch availability affect fixtures but having an input of someone with technical knowledge of football would greatly help to avoid unhealthy fixture congestion and overlapping football seasons.

Uganda Football Players’ Association needs to adopt a corporate governance module to enable it to attract and have all football players as members.

This will help them achieve self-sustainability to open up funding for educating players. All footballers in Uganda may be ignorant about the dangers of playing many matches in unfavorable recovery conditions.

Ironically, FUFA preaches and practices corporate governance but the majority of its members are struggling to implement it. FUFA should empower members by conducting training sessions to improve governance.

FUFA’s club licensing regulations should be enforced. Under financial criteria, clubs are supposed to have cleared all debts to zero balance.

With better supervision, it’s possible to identify clubs that haven’t paid players and other service providers.

FUFA can amend competition regulations to include that clubs defaulting on payments be deducted points and it extreme cases they can be relegated or denied a license to compete in some tournaments.

Football organizers in Uganda need to start considering players as key stakeholders in decisions. For that to happen, players will need to be educated. With knowledge comes power.

Disclaimers: The writer has nothing against any football tournament in Uganda.

Football coaching jobs in Uganda.

Hands up if you are tired and fed up with recycled football coaches using the same ideas at the top level in Ugandan football! That’s very many hands out there, one hand up is enough.

In September 2014, I attended a CAF C coaching class with 71 other aspiring coaches. In January 2017 we upgraded to CAF B, the number of students dropped to about 50.

As I prepare for CAF A that might be at the end of 2019, there’s a very high possibility we could be less than 30 students. With CAF PRO coaching course coming up in 2021, imagine how empty the class will be.

It’s possible that by nature, numbers reduce as you progress higher due to many reasons. In this case, it’s the lack of football coaching jobs in Uganda. Well, not jobs but the lack of football coaching opportunities.

Jobs are scarce everywhere, but not in Ugandan football because there are very many tournaments that offer football coaching opportunities.

Take a deep breath as you read through this list of tournaments; Uganda Premier League (UPL), Big League, The Drum football tournament, University Football League, Beach Soccer, Futsal League, Masaza Cup, Copa Coca-cola, Bika football tournament, Women’s Elite League and regional leagues.

Coach X is a head coach in different teams competing in almost every football tournament in Uganda including the corporate league. This means that coach X occupies positions that would have been held by almost 10 other coaches.

Coach X occupying all those positions, means that his idea of coaching football is used in different tournaments that limit Ugandan football from the opportunity to see fresh ideas of other football coaches.

Coach X is one of many coaches occupying more than one football coaching position which further reduces the number of opportunities available for upcoming coaches.

Whenever there’s a vacant coaching position in UPL, it’s very easy to guess which coach will take up that position. It’s so easy to an extent that media no longer need to attend a press conference, all they do is to guess which ends up being correct.

In the worst case, by the end of the 2018-19 UPL season, Onduparaka fc and Paidha Black Angels didn’t bother naming replacements after their coaches left because they were waiting for the recycled coaches to be available.

As 2019-20 pre-season gets underway, Mbarara City FC is still hunting for a coach but there’s almost no choice of a coach because all the recycled coaches have either been taken up or booked.

Maroons FC, Kyetume FC, and Wakiso Giants FC have all named new coaches that have been recycled from over the years.

Indeed, the tried and tested coaches will always get the best jobs but in Uganda’s case, only a selected few are tried and tested because they occupy almost every football coaching position.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO COACH MANY TEAMS?
In June 2019, I conducted coaching sessions for my football students. The process of planning and designing a 90-minute training session was very demanding, it required a whole month of planning yet there were only three training sessions per week in that month. The evaluation process was equally demanding though in a good way.

It’s almost impossible to excel as a professional if you can’t commit time and effort to one thing at a time. Any football coach that handles more than one team is the definition of amateur and mediocrity.

If Ugandan football needs to progress from amateur status to professional, then regulations on football coaches need to be revised.

WHAT SHOULD FUFA DO?
Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) has done very well to make regulations that make it easy for qualified coaches to get jobs and practice what they have learned. UPL and Big League clubs are required to have coaches of certain qualifications.

FUFA should revise regulations to limit the number of teams and tournaments a coach can be allowed to gain employment. More regulations should be set in place to protect Women’s football and female coaches.

Revised regulations should include; A head coach in any team should not be allowed to hold another football coaching job, any coach working in the top two divisions should not be allowed to hold another coaching position, coaches should be limited to working with one team per season.

Coaches in developing football disciplines like Futsal and Beach soccer should not be allowed to hold more than two coaching positions.

Development tournaments like Masaza cup, Copa coca-cola, Bika football tournament, The Drum football tournament and University football league should only be handled by football coaches that have never been employed in the top two divisions.

The best way to enforce such regulations is to ensure that every football tournament registers the coaches handling teams competing in that tournament then submit to FUFA for supervision.

With those regulations in place, it will be possible to see more football coaching ideas that will eventually get to the top tier league. The more ideas available, the higher the chances of getting a better idea.

Ugandan football needs a high number of qualified coaches, with revised regulations to create jobs and opportunities, it’s very possible to greatly reduce the rate of football coaching student dropouts.

Disclaimer: The writer doesn’t have anything against Coach X.