FUFA's annual meeting to agree new ways to make money
The Super League, Uganda's premier football league competition, received Shs53 million in gate collections throughout the 2008/9 season, subject to Value Added Tax. Over the same period, the league needed at least Shs2 billion to run.
The 18 league teams needed on average Shs100 million apiece, with match officials, staff, administration, stadia and equipment taking up the balance. A Super league game sets back each fan between Shs3000 and Shs5000.
The Ugandan football industry depends almost entirely on donations, with individual soccer lovers contributing the biggest chunk of the needed funds. The availability of funds to the clubs, therefore, depends on the financial fortunes of their benevolent financiers.
In the course of the last season, SC Villa, Uganda's most successful football club of all time, was docked nine points for failing to turn up for two league games. The club had not paid players' allowances for six months, prompting a sit-down strike. Coach Sula Kato was forced on one occasion to play seven men instead of 11 for failure to raise the numbers. Villa's most successful epoch in the mid 1990s was occasioned by the late Patrick Kawooya's bottomless pockets, enthusiasm towards the game and organisational ability.
The now relegated Arua FC failed to turn up for three games in the last season, with financial constraints cited as the principal cause.
This precarious situation has not gone unnoticed by football administrators. Fufa CEO Edgar Watson gives away as much, arguing that football has gone way beyond just a game. He says long gone are the days of amateur football.
Moses Magogo, secretary to the Uganda Super League Committee the body that currently runs the league, adds that going forward, Ugandan football has to be packaged as a product. He envisages a situation where football clubs would become investment opportunities even for individuals with no interest in the game, the same way it is in various countries.
This is the thinking that informs the idea of transforming the Super League into a professional competition over time. Last January, Super League clubs and the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) representatives penned the now famous Jinja Declaration with the guidance of the international football federation, Fifa.
Under this arrangement, a company, Uganda Super League Ltd, will take over the running the league from the Uganda Super League Committee of Fufa. This company, unlike under the current arrangement, will enjoy a considerable degree of independence from the football governing body.
It shall have 17 shareholders in all, with Fufa as a special shareholder. The other 16 ordinary shareholders will be the Super League clubs, with those that get relegated automatically losing their slots to those that get promoted. The number of teams in the Super League has been cut by two to 16 beginning next season, and shall reduce by a further two with time, all in the name of promoting efficiency.
Fufa shall exercise some control, however, through licensing clubs that make it to the Super League. The club licensing process shall consider five key aspects; financial muscle, sporting success, legal and administrative structure, personnel and the club's infrastructure.
The motive is to give rise to football clubs that are professionally ran and competitive in sporting terms.
Magogo is optimistic that this arrangement will open up new possibilities of raising finances to boost the local league, and subsequently Ugandan football. The most obvious avenues he cites for increasing financing for the league are through attracting sponsorship, building partnerships with corporate bodies, merchandising, sale of media rights and sale of players.
He adds that gate collection can increase tremendously through re-building fan belief in the Super League; an end he believes will be achieved through reorganising the handling of the competition.
Sponsorship is one of the biggest sources of financing to football clubs and associations world over and the Uganda Super League reaped from this source only recently. Gateway TV Co. (GTV) and Fufa entered an agreement in the 2007/8 league season worth US $ 0.53 million that involved live telecasting of league games and cash. The deal was however dealt a lethal blow by the world financial melt down that led to the collapse of GTV. The new arrangement aims to attract many more such deals.
When Fufa's annual GM convenes on August 20, Fufa's Watson confirmed that making the necessary constitutional arrangements and adopting the new system will be top on the agenda. By the time the new league season kicks off mid next month, Uganda Super league Ltd. is expected to be running things. The Jinja Declaration looks to 2014 as the year progress towards achieving the professionalisation of the Super League will be evaluated.
It is indeed set to be a bumpy road, and the men running things seem aware of the challenges ahead. Magogo insists that what matters is to start somewhere so that challenges are handled as they manifest along the way.
Denis Mbidde, a local football enthusiast who played a key role in the Save our Soccer (SoS) campaign that intensely battled the late Denis Obua's administration at Fufa for what was perceived as maladministration, believes that the new arrangement presents an opportunity for a fresh start.
Mbidde says that the new administration will give rise to a non- amorphous structure compared to the current set up. He explains that Fufa is currently bogged down by multi-responsibilities.
"Fufa runs district football; first division; second division; women football; Uganda Cranes; Uganda Kobs, etc. This makes it ineffective," he says.
Under such a structure, he adds, even if you had the right people, there is no way they would run all the operations efficiently. "We have to have a fresh start," he concludes.
The fresh start Mbidde dreams of is around the corner. However, only time will tell how fast the teams will be rebuilt to suit the new age and whether the fans will once again throng stadia to support them.
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written by Hubert, February 21, 2011
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written by Mugambe J., February 21, 2011
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