By: Immanuel Ben Misagga
We live in strange times. It was announced a few weeks ago that the Ugandan Cranes will play its home matches in Egypt after failing to meet the stadium requirements set by the Continental body.
There is hardly anything strange because we all know the state of Mandela National Stadium, Namboole.
St Mary’s Stadium in Kitende, which has hosted a number of recent Cranes games, passed six of Caf’s seven required regulations but ‘failed’ the security test on grounds of the narrow roads leading to the stadium, which may threaten the safety of teams and fans, especially in case of an emergency or violence.
The twist is that the same officials that deemed the same stadium unsuitable for the National Team match declared it fit for Vipers SC continental matches. How ironical!
I have heard arguments that CAF has a more strict rulebook for national team matches but there is no such thing. What’s more, stadiums are assessed regularly.
The real move behind the two parallel verdicts is that the hyenas at the Federation of Uganda Football Association never put up a fight to avoid unnecessary costs of travelling on top of missing the morale of home fans.
In fact, it has been said that some officials who inspected the Kitende stadium were compromised to declare it unfit for FUFA matches.
So, FUFA knew well that taking the game away from Uganda will be a huge money heist of more than a billion Uganda shillings.
At a time when the Cranes are at an all-time low in terms of results and fan following, holding the game at Kitende was never going to be a ‘good’ move for FUFA and it would have provided a lot of scrutiny from the football fraternity.
But taking it to Egypt provides them a chance to do as they wish, right from selecting whom to travel with the team and also bagging millions in form of per diem and other extras.
The big question is, why couldn’t Moses Magogo, a CAF Executive, lobby to have St Mary Kitende Stadium cleared? TV money is what our FA is looking for.
Courtesy Photos
