Tag Archives: UPL

Actions that keep Ugandan football amateur.

Amateur football is the act of engaging in football to pass time usually without the expectation of remuneration.

Professional football is a full-time activity in football, working towards remuneration being more than what has been invested.

Football in Uganda was introduced by the British colonialists as a hobby.

It was viewed as a leisure activity that players, coaches, referees, administrators, and other football stakeholders could get involved in at the end of the day when they had finished up with work.

The year is 2020, football is still generally amateur in Uganda.

There are steps that are being taken by the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) to develop football into a profession but we still have decisions and actions that keep Ugandan football amateur.

In March 2020, Uganda’s domestic national team camped for training in the same period that coincided with the Uganda Premier League (UPL) matchday 25.

Some clubs had players reporting on match day to represent their clubs.

That incident on its own raises questions that prove our level of amateurism.

How did club coaches prepare their teams for matchday 25?

Did the national team coach share the players’ training workload with affected club coaches?

Could the national team training be delayed by a week or have UPL matchday 25 postponed?

We also have many incidents of coaches handling more than one team at the same time.

These include the national team coaches handling the domestic team and the majorly based foreign team considering that in March 2020 they were going to be in camp at the same time.

From May 2015 to February 2020, I worked as a full-time football coach but failed to see how it’s possible to coach more than one team at the same time.

The amount of work required to plan and prepare a training session, conduct and supervise a training session, to evaluate, and give feedback after the session is very demanding.

Professional football coaches work with bigger teams of support coaches but still require breaks (now known as sabbaticals) in between moving from one job to another because they need to recharge from the exhaustive task.

If any coach is handling more than one team at the same time, then it’s clear that they aren’t doing 30% of the work that should be done.

In the example of UPL and our national team coaches, these are the known professional football entities in Uganda but professionalism is on paper and not yet practiced at 100%.

If football in Uganda is to develop into professional then we need to accept that we are still amateur.

Arriving at the acceptance stage is what will enable us to start planning on how to become professional.

Unfortunately, 99% of the internal football stakeholders in Uganda either haven’t arrived at the acceptance stage and/or deny that football is still amateur.

We seem to be comfortable with football staying in its current stage.

Professional football would transform Uganda’s economy by reducing the rate of unemployment, greatly increase on the amount of taxes collected from football, football is a huge factor in increasing the number of tourists, and professional football requires knowledge that would improve the education capacity of the Ugandans involved in football.

For that to happen, we need to document the decisions and actions that are still keeping us amateur then plan on how to become professional.

FUFA can’t solve Uganda’s football problems on its own.

Whenever there’s a football problem in Uganda, the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) is expected to solve it.

Poor officiation, clubs not paying salaries, poor football facilities, players failing trials, unprofessional coaches, women’s football issues, unregulated agents, chaotic schools’ football, unethical administrators, football not being able to make front-page headlines, clubs not performing at the continental level, etc.

Think of any problem within Ugandan football, and FUFA will be the first culprit.

Some problems are comical like; clubs not having sponsors, age cheating in underage football, and transporting clubs.

As the body that’s in charge of football in Uganda, FUFA should take responsibility for the blame but they can’t solve all problems.

Using an example of corruption, the Ugandan government is responsible and should take the blame but can’t solve that problem on its own.

It requires sensitizing the public that acts like bribing police, bribing your way to getting a job, cheating in exams, expecting to be paid extra for performing a service for which you are already paid, falsifying receipts, etc. are all acts of corruption.

That way, the public will know that corruption starts with me.

It’s a problem that can go away if we change behaviour from our homes and the quality of upbringing.  

FUFA is a group of football associations. They are the members that makeup FUFA.

Uganda Football Referees’ Association, Uganda Football Coaches’ Association, Uganda Women’s Football Association, Uganda Football Players’ Association, etc. are some of the FUFA member associations.

An image showing some of FUFA’s member associations

FUFA needs to come up with a syllabus for developing the capacity of administrators to improve governance with FUFA member associations.

Come up with guidelines on who qualifies to be eligible for football administration courses.

Formulate a thorough member association licensing guide, delegate tasks that directly affect member associations, a balance scorecard, and an appraisal system for member associations.

From that process, it’s possible to ask questions like; What does each FUFA member association do to solve problems that are linked to them?

On 12th February 2020, the FUFA Competitions Disciplinary Panel (CPD) ruled that KCCA FC fans committed acts of hooliganism in a UPL match against URA FC after the Sam Ssimbwa (URA FC head coach) celebrated in front of them.

Interestingly, Sam Ssimbwa didn’t get any punishment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is among the majority blaming FUFA for any problem.

Unknown to CPD, three football problems were “swept under the carpet” yet these will haunt FUFA in the long run.

The URA FC vs KCCA FC fans violence can be solved by making the Uganda Football Coaches’ Association answerable as to why they have licensed a coach that behaves that way, make the Uganda Football Referees’ Association answerable as to why the referee did not book the coach, make UPL, URA FC and KCCA FC answerable for the way fans behaved in that match.

There should be repercussions for each football problem, ensure that it’s documented and make sure the responsible member association is doing something about the found problems.

The repercussions should always trickle down to the coach, fan, referee, administrator, and player to always be answerable and start taking responsibility for any football problem.

How long will it take for FUFA member associations to solve problems and to ensure they don’t happen again?

How long would it take to solve the majority of Uganda’s football problems?

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.

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.