When Uganda hosted the CHAN 2024 football tournament’s first game, where the Cranes suffered a 3-0 defeat against Algeria, on Monday August 4, fans at Namboole Stadium experienced difficulties due to the lack of food, drinks, entrance negligence, and seating arrangements.
Many who had tickets found that the seating arrangements were chaotic.
However, in today’s update at the AFCON secretariat in Lugogo, Mark Namanya, the spokesperson for the Local Organizing Committee assisting CAF in organizing CHAN, acknowledged the complaints from Ugandan fans and apologized on behalf of the committee.
While addressing the media, Namanya assured that such problems will not happen again. “It’s not intentional negligence, but now that we have seen the issues, it won’t happen again. We have held a meeting with CAF officials today to find solutions, and we resolved.
“For the match on Friday, August 8, food and drinks will be available at affordable prices. We will do everything possible to avoid repeating these problems.”
Regarding the entry difficulties some people encountered, Namanya appealed. “We are careful to ensure everyone with a ticket enters comfortably and happily, but we are still learning because this is the first time we have had a tournament of this scale. We have learned from what happened yesterday and will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
On Friday, Uganda will play its second match of the tournament against Guinea at 8:00 pm at Namboole Stadium as they seek to bounce back from the Algeria defeat.
