Uganda’s football year through Fufa boss Moses Magogo’s eyes

I must state that if 2015 was a golden year for Ugandan Football, 2016 has been diamond

I thank the Almighty Allah for the gift of life, wisdom, health, strength, and luck that He has bestowed onto me and my administration.

I also take the opportunity to thank HE The President of the Republic of Uganda Rtd Gen Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for the Support he has given whenever approached. I equally thank the Minister of Education & Sports, Mama Janet Museveni and the entire government functionality for the environment and support

I thank my family for enduring my absence for long hours, bad moods caused by football and for comforting me whenever the going gets tough.

The support we have received from the FIFA President, Mr Infantino Gianni and the entire functionality at FIFA and also from the CAF President, Mr. Issa Hayatou and the entire functionality at CAF has been immense. The support, interaction and experience sharing from Presidents of Football Federation in Africa and the World has been equally important to our success story.

I thank my Executive Committee with whom we have come this far but also the Honourable FUFA Delegates, staff at FUFA, National team Players and Staff, the Committees, Referees, coaches, Clubs, and members of FUFA without whom we could not register any success.

I thank Airtel the Official Sponsors of the Uganda Cranes and Nile Breweries, NIC, BIDCO, Eco Bank, Azam and other Clubs and football corporate Sponsors who have provided money for the game of football.

I also thank Mr. Lawrence Mulindwa for scouting, nurturing and giving me an opportunity and support to exploit my God-given gifts by serving the game I love.

I have loved the critics who have pushed me to think and work harder. The positive and critical media have been very important to the achievements.

The people who spend to finance football from their personal income from the lowest to the highest level and the persons who have sacrificed their time to volunteer as coaches, players, referees and administrators again from the lowest to the highest level.

Lastly but not the least, particularly the fans of the Uganda Cranes and generally all football fans who have paid to support the National Teams and Clubs football. You guys have been immense in the thick and thin.

Achievements

There has been a series of achievement in the year 2016 but this is the start of reaping what we have been sowing since August 2013.

1)         Administration & Planning

We recruited 3 more staff in 2016 thus;

1. Deputy FUFA CEO; basically to support the widening functions of the CEO

2. FUFA Youth Officer; To Majorly handle the FUFA Youth Project that has the element of U17 FUFA Juniors League for the Azam Uganda Premier League Clubs

3. FUFA Media Content Officer; To capture and produce digital media content in form of Audio, Pictorial and Video material of FUFA Events and Programmes

This brings the FUFA Fulltime Contracted Staff to 28. We have been able to update the arrears of PAYE and NSSF over the years for the staff.

We organised the successfully the 92nd FUFA General Assembly in Luwero to a distinction. The FUFA Executive Committee Meetings have been held as required by the statutes and many other strategic meetings and events have equally been successfully organised.

The Uganda Cranes Bus that was involved in an Accident at the end of 2015 was repaired and brought back to service. There has been a 3-phase Power Generator installed at Njeru Technical Centre. We have refurbished FUFA House and created more office space.

We have now comprehensively insured FUFA House, FUFA Technical Centre and the Uganda Cranes Bus.

We have now updated our ground rates that were in arrears over many years for FUFA House and Njeru Technical Centre.

In finance and Banking, we have increased our budget to now 14 Billion UGX for the 2017 FY and have signed Eco Bank as the official Bankers who are now offering lots of banking services to avoid short term and high interest risk credit facilities.

2)       Governance

As we speak, FUFA has submitted whatever is required to NCS for recognition as the Association mandated to regulate and manage the sport of football. We hope this concludes this matter until the New Law is Formulated.

We have also been able to defend FUFA and its officials from various legal attacks and all forms of litigation. I must congratulate our lawyers on this sustained defense campaign

A number of regulations have been enacted and statutes modified. We now have a minimum of 4 women in the FUFA Assembly for the first time.

We created the Match Organisation Committee to deal with match results manipulation and violence at matches. FUFA appointed Muzafaru Zirabamuzale who has been trained by FIFA and has now been appointed by FIFA conduct the training in the region with the latest being in Djibouti.

We have formulated the FUFA Judicial bodies in the FUFA Disciplinary, Ethics and Integrity Committees with both Adjudication and Investigatory Chambers. A number of cases have been competently handled and concluded by these bodies.

FUFA presented its audited books of accounts for the year ending 31st December 2015 to the internal stakeholders on 22nd October 2016 in Luwero and got the final approval. These books of accounts have been shared with Government (NCS) and FIFA that has issued the greenlight that qualifies FUFA for the funding of 2017 cycle.

3)         Competitions

FUFA now categorizes football Competitions as Elite (Professional) and Mass (Amateur).

1. a) Professional Competitions comprise of the 1st (AUPL) and 2nd Division (FBL) Leagues for Men and the FUFA Women Elite League for Women.

As FUFA we have been very strong in Club Licensing where clubs are assessed if they qualify to play in the top league in the areas of Sporting, Administrative, Financial, Infrastructure and Legal Setup. It stretches clubs but eventually it is re-engineering our clubs.

The good working relationship between FUFA, the Uganda Premier League Board and the Clubs has completely eliminated the previous battles here. I applaud the club chairmen who have ensured that this tranquility continues.

Professionalization is taking root at club level as evidenced by the rate of club sponsors coming on board. Vipers SC (Hima Cement), Bright Stars (Lato Milk), Express FC (DStv), SC Villa (Star Times), KCCA (Star Times & Others) and Onduparaka (Betway) make 5 out 16 Clubs now with Club Sponsors.

In terms of the Quality of football, there has been a huge turnaround too. Now clubs play more organised football. This can be attributed to the training of coaches. I found 28 CAF C coaches suited for schools football but were coaching the 1st Division League Clubs in 2013. Now we have over 500 Coaches in CAF A, CAF B, CAF C and FUFA level-1 and the minimum for 1st Division League is CAF B by rule. The quality of football and level of competition has increased tremendously and if maintained we are destined to get more locally based players in the Men’s (A) National Team.

I must mention my excitement of Onduparaka. It has proven many theories wrong. Many people were saying upcountry clubs cannot exist in the league for economic reasons. Mbale, Masaka, Iganga, Lira and Mbarara have the potential to do what Arua has done with Onduparak. Many things have been done right at that Club. I congratulate the people of West Nile for this achievement and contribution to the game of football. The League would not be the same without Onduparaka. KCCA FC, Vipers SC, SC Villa, Express FC, and many other Clubs are really trying and pointing in the right direction. How I wish we had done this in the late 90s

1. b) Mass Competitions comprises of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Division Leagues for Men and the Women Regional League for Women. It also includes all other competitions authorised by FUFA. We have continued with the growth in the masses involved and in 2016, 54,400 Players (Both Men and Women) were registered to play FUFA Competitions.

The Uganda Cup was played to conclusion with Vipers SC emerging champions in the first biggest turn up at a cup in final in the last 10 years.

We have also introduced the FUFA Women Cup to allow non-League women clubs to participate.

With the increased demand for more time for football matches, we have largely stabilized in the management of events by producing a calendar that guides the activities and fixtures of football. This has allowed proper allocation of time to accommodate all programmes, events and matches without clashing. There is still room for improvement though.

4)    Membership

FUFA Women Elite League was admitted to bring the number of members of FUFA to 33. FUFA has continued to give financial support to its members. In 2016 Alone FUFA has extended Financial Support to its members to a tune of 150m UGX.

At the 92nd FUFA General Assembly, we have approved the Regional Football Association Strategy where the following interventions will be made to the 8 Regions;

1. Financial Assistance of 240m UGX in 2017
2. The Balls Distribution Programme
3. The Education Plan
4. Supervision & Mentorship
5. Offices with Facilities
6. Infrastructure

The Financial Assistance has not been coming as scheduled for matters of cash flow and priorities but with the new strategy, even payment dates have been set to enable proper planning for the RFAs.

5)     Marketing & Communications

When we opted to undertake rebranding by changing the logos and jerseys, there was a lot of negativity but my leadership as always was walking many steps ahead. We also opted to spend more on visibility and now we are reaping what we sowed.

1. a) Marketing

There has been increased revenue from sponsorship by bringing on board long and short term partners. Ecobank are now the official FUFA Banking Partners bringing in UGX 450M.

In January 2015, we came here and promised to revamp the FUFA Awards. We organised and also partly financed the 2016 FUFA Awards. Whereas the discussion has been who should have won and what is the fair system to be used to determine the winner, as FUFA we are proud that this event has been full revamped and talk is not about the food served and if the winners got their presents. Seeing Sandra Nabweteme (2015- FUFA Female Player of the Year) and now Hasifah Nassuuna (2016- FUFA Female Player of the Year) drive away has been emotional moments for me about these awards. We will improve in the areas lacking.

1. b) Communications

We have continued to professionally communicate about FUFA and its activities using our official tools and platforms.

Verification of the FUFA Official Facebook Page and Twitter handles has enabled our platforms to be quoted by World Media agencies.

The perception of Ugandan football has taken a positive direction in long a while. We have worked tirelessly to position football to the attention of the powers that are. It was unbelievable that Parliament of Uganda and the entire government spectrum could make football a point of discussion. Today the Uganda Cranes, the football flagship brand, is discussed across the top religious echelon, the cultural leadership spectrum and every ordinary citizen. Currently, Uganda is being discussed on the world media channels of Bein Sport, ESPN, Super Sport, Azam, Sky News, BBC, Aljazera, CNN, VOA, RFI etc.

The Corporate Portfolio in Uganda has taken on the Friday Uganda Cranes Jersey bug.

HE the President of the Republic of Uganda has acquired keen interest in the proceeding and welfare of the team that he calls the FUFA President, the Head Coach and the Team Captain directly to reaffirm his support. I cannot forget when the Farouk Miya scored the goal that ended the 38 year absence from AFCON how the Minister of Education and Sports and also first lady Mrs. Museveni abandoned her protocol and security detail to celebrate on her first visit to the stadium.

Football currently is being perceived and positioned in its rightful place and this will result into the right and disserving prioritization and resource allocation.

We have also conducted CSR activities at Nakasongola and Missionaries for the Poor in Kisenyi.

6)   Infrastructure

We have not been able to undertake any infrastructure programme as FIFA was revising the way the funding will be administered. We have however within the available resources refurbished FUFA House. The Signage and Reception Areas have been improved to suit the new corporate image of FUFA.

7)   Technical Development

At FUFA we believe in technical development of the game for a better future. We have undertaken a number of interventions in order to develop the game to better standards.

Youth Football

We have recruited a full time Youth Development Officer to undertake the FUFA Youth Project. We have undertaken Grassroots Football Programmes in the Regions and the FUFA Juniors League continues where FUFA is providing Equipment, paying for referees, transport for the away team and salary for the Coach. We have also continued to partner with Airtel for the ARS Programme that is credited for having produced Faruku Miya and Martin Kizza.

Women Football

FUFA takes women football as an important development segment of the game in Uganda and has undertaken programmes to ensure its nation-wide development. When we took a bold step to withdraw from continental competitions, we were ridiculed but our objective which we have so far achieved was to extend the playing opportunity to more girls in Uganda than spending hundreds of millions on about 20 girls only. We opted to introduce girls’ club football.

The Women Elite League is running in the 3rd Edition and this gave us a background for the National Team that played 6 international matches in 2016. We successfully hosted CECAFA Women Championship in Njeru.

We now believe it is the right time to return to the continental football as we have proper structures that can generate a proper representative national team.

Women in Leadership Programme

FUFA has undertaken steps to provide for involvement of more women in the administration of the game of football. The recruitment policy at FUFA has been very sensitive to gender balance as we currently have a woman at Director Level and others at Manager and officer levels. With the proposed statutory amendments, the number for women in the FUFA General Assembly will now be guaranteed as a minimum of 4 out of 88 compared to a minimum of none in the previous statutes. The women representation is as follows;

1 for the FUFA Women Elite League;

1 for the Female Referees

2 for the Uganda Women Football Association

Support to Excelling Athletes

FUFA extended financial support for Air ticket and Visa for Nabweteme Sandra considering her excellent performance to join university education in the United States. We have received reports that she is performing very well developing her career in football and education. Definitely in future in addition to Lucky Otandeka (USA), Natasha Shirazi (based in Denmark) and Jean Seninde (QPR in England), Sandra will be invited to represent the national team.

Beach Soccer

UBSA started from individual enthusiasm but has now become a very organised member of FUFA. We have continued to have beach soccer as one of our integral development activities.

Referees; We now have 3 International Beach Soccer Referees who have been officiating CAF and FIFA games throughout Africa. We organise fitness tests for referees for Beach Soccer. Our own Bayige Ivan Kintu the FUFA Referee of the Year 2016 officiated the Finals of the 2016 Africa Cup of Nations Beach Soccer Championship

National Team; The National Beach Soccer national Team (The Sand Cranes) has continued to play international friendly matches.

Education

When one needs results for a year plant Maize, when one needs results for a decade plant trees but when one needs results for a generation, educate people.

This is exactly what our approach has been in capacity building in the areas of Coaching, Refereeing, Sports Medicine and Administration.

We have introduced the coaching practicing license to ensure professionalism is exhibited

FUFA has also embarked on the training of trainers in the regions to ensure that we have enough teachers to sustain the football education agenda in Coaching, Refereeing, Sports Medicine and Administration.

Germany Coaching Programme; we have revived the collaboration with the Germany Federation where we had always been allocated 2 slots annually for training. This year Mathias Lule attended the course. Upon application, Kasule Mujib had been appointed by FUFA to attend the course but later turned down the offer. We believe in the coming years many more coaches will benefit from this programme that is partially funded by FUFA

Refereeing

Refereeing is a key function in football development. As FUFA we have seriously undertaken Refereeing management, welfare and development. The AUPL in the last meeting in Mandela after the end of the first round, the clubs confessed that there is improvement of the referees performance.

Manual; we produced the Referees Manual that guides the operations of the refereeing sector. Hitherto, Refereeing operations were not guided by any written procedure.

Grading; we have introduced the system of all referees being sent from the RFA to FUFA. We now have a list of referees (FUFA Referee Badge) who handle national competitions and those that manage the RFA Competitions. FUFA Provides the National Referees with the basic refereeing equipment.

Openness; we have brought down soliciting, lobbying, God fathering, patronage, rumour mongering and many similar vices that were rife in refereeing by being open and fair to all. We have put in place a procedure for proposing referees for the international list to FIFA. It is about medical and physical fitness and then FRSC recommends to the FUFA Excom where the final list is approved. We always announce the names sent to FIFA openly and this has reduced tensions and underhand methods hitherto used.

Independence; the FRSC undertakes its decision and operations in the areas of appointment, assessment, training and monitoring without any interference from the FUFA Executive Committee or any other party.

Disciplinary Measures; Referees that do not deliberately nor inadvertently interpret and apply the FIFA Laws of the Game are always sanctioned. This improves the level of performance of referees. We have sanctioned Referees

Payment; the payment of referees for the other competitions is still a challenge in amount and schedule of payment. However, for the Azam Uganda Premier League, on top of clearing the outstanding dues of the previous seasons, we have increased from 20,000 UGX per referee to averagely 150,000 UGX.

FUFA Young Referees Programme; we have started a programme of training referees for the age younger than 18 years as the basis for the future. The trained referees are gaining experience by officiating the U17 FUFA Juniors League. We believe after 10 years these will be the best referees in Africa.

8)    National Teams

There has been a tremendous improvement in the performance of the Uganda Cranes.

Currently only Uganda amongst the 25 nations in the East, Central and Southern Africa is still running for both AFCON 2017 finals and World Cup. To be more precise, Uganda is currently rubbing soldiers with Africa’s other best 12 footballing nations thus Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cameroon and DRC. Only Uganda amongst these has neither hosted AFCON nor been to the World Cup.

Whereas the Uganda Cranes had made Namboole Fortress, qualification to AFCON still eluded us because our perennial poor away results irrespective of the opposition. This has since changed as we have been able to win crucial away matches in Comoros and Botswana.

Incidentally this has not come accidentally and by luck like some schools of thought but has been achieved through immaculate planning, hard work and execution by FUFA, the Coaches and the Players.

Logistics; The FUFA management & Staff have tremendously improved on the logistics support. Co-ordination of invitations and travel of all the players required by the coach from all over the world, Equipment, Training Camps, international friendlies, motivation & welfare, accommodation and travel plans may go unnoticed without any major incident in the last three years.

Technically; Our Coaching Staff have been tremendous. From identification, distance coaching, analysis of ourselves and opposition, training, following, statistics, video clips, man management, trial matches, technical decision making, counselling, motivation, game reading and tactics. I applaud the Head Coach Micho, Moses Basena and Fred Kajoba. The Medical Staff have been extra ordinary. We have not heard cases of missing players due to sickness or injury. Doctors Kisolo Ronald and Physiotherapist Sewanyana Ivan have been responsible for the availability of the players for selection free from medical impairment

Players; There has been a growth amongst our player ranks. The senior players in Dennis Onyango, Geoffrey Massa and Tonny Mawejje have provided the experience and performances. The young players have grown in stature. We now have players in Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Russia, United States and S. Africa while the ones trading in the region thus Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda have gained the necessary experience.

The FUFA President, the Executive Committee and the staff have co-ordinated the machinery of mobilising the necessary resources, providing and supervising, creating a family of players, coaches, staff and FUFA Executive Committee.

Once again it is thorough planning, hard work, commitment and execution that has given divine intervention and luck a platform to deliver Uganda to the table of Men in African Football.

Challenges

The main Challenge has been our mindsets. Football has been amateur football since 1897 to professional football. The entire football family, the fans/public, the corporate world and the government has still not yet conceptualized the goldmine of a professional football industry considering the natural endowment that God has bestowed upon us as a nation.

This leads to peripheral resource allocation to football by us all. By resource allocation I mean, the time, the HR and the finances. Sports will always be the last page, low quality, quantity and volunteer HR and for example 0.06% of the national budget was allocated to all sports inclusive of salaries of government staff in 2014/5 National Budget.

Without enough resources, we will definitely have no one minding the old Sports Law and lack of Policies that could enforce development of sports, decaying and insufficient sports infrastructure, and struggling national teams representing Uganda.

Also to note is that football does not exist in isolation. The challenges of society affect football too. The socio-economic challenges of corruption, drugs, economy, infrastructure, security, heath, etc will always affect the end product of football.

Everything else as a challenge is purely operational and is simply a symptom of the above.

2017 & the Future

We are looking forward to an event better year in 2017. What we sow now is what we shall reap in the future. There is definitely need to highlight the priority areas;

1. Strategic Plan; Implement the 2017-22 FUFA Strategic Plan to the detail

2. Consolidation; Ensure what we have achieved we do not lose it thus consolidating our achievements

3. Project Cameroon 2019 & WC 2018; We will continue to pursue the dream of playing at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and also start our dream project and campaign dubbed Project Cameroon 2019 which starts in March 2017

4. Infrastructure; On top of improving the current infrastructure, we intend to undertake civil projects at Kadiba, Lugazi and in each of the other Regional FA Jurisdiction in 2017 and the Future

5. New Sports Law; We shall continue to push, contribute and advocate for new sports law

6. Stakeholders Confidence; There has been a lot of beating of the FUFA Brand which has been caused by facilitated media exploiting the lack of information by the public and the entire external football stakeholders. 2017 & future, FUFA will be more aggressive in information sharing, educating and engaging the stakeholders in order to gain more stakeholders confidence

7. RFA Strategy; The ambitious RFA Strategy will be implemented and monitored to ensure the funds and equipment released get to the intended users

8. Clubs Pro Agenda; We also intend to engage the Professional competitions Clubs in order to re-engineer their respective approaches

9. Elections; I have proudly led the process to rebuild the Institution of FUFA. I believe we now have the means to organise a free and fair election as an institution. The elections start from the grassroots to the Presidency comprising of over 1000 elective positions and we have to look at the game not the individuals. The game shall be led by those who are currently making a contribution as internal stakeholders not passersby. Anyone interested in football leadership should get a GPS in football. It is that simple.

Conclusion

If it were an aircraft, we have delivered Uganda to the runway ready to take off. The commercial viability of FUFA today as obtained from the Sporting Results, marketing approach, governance structures, strategic planning and Togetherness can now generate the resources required to undertake long term development that will sustain Ugandan football at the highest.

We however need the tested crew to manage the takeoff and cruising of the Ugandan Football Aircraft

It is Our Game, It is Our CountryFUFA President Eng. Moses Magogo’s End of Year Message 2016