Kampala — After enduring a painfully long period of stability, success and, as a result, boredom, KCC FC feels the time is right to rock the boat. And the tone of sarcasm in that statement is purely accidental. Elsewhere, in saner environments, football coaches, as the cliché goes, are in the 'results business'. But in Uganda, they are in the image business.

Some years ago, when SC Villa surprisingly fired Paul Hasule, they appointed Moses Basena on a caretaker basis. It was common knowledge that the club was looking for a white skin to take over as head coach and Basena would drop down to assistant. The foreigner would be paid a hefty sum and given all necessary comfort to accomplish what any local coach can do.

I call it the curse of an African professional; you aren't trusted by whites because you are black and you aren't trusted by blacks because you are black.

That inferiority complex is the worst manifestation of neo-colonialism, even worse than the theft of Africa's resources, our agricultural-based economies and IMF's ludicrous aid conditions.

At the time, I told Basena that it was up to him to convince the Villa management that he can deliver them to the African Champions League group stages and they didn't need a white man to do that.

I doubt he would have succeeded but I suspect he didn't even try. So Micho Sredojevic came, earned and left without Villa ever joining the continental elite.

It's down to perception. If your bosses don't see you as coaching material, no amount of victories or trophies can make you safe in the job.

That's where George Nsimbe falls short. The KCC coach has gone a record 18 matches unbeaten (17 wins and a draw) and even won a championship .but, whatever he does, he's only Nsimbe; the man in a tired yellow tracksuit and equally worn out sneakers.

He simply doesn't have the image to match the position. That's why the club is likely to hire a Kenyan, sooner rather than later. According to club chairman Godfrey Kisekka, it's later.

"â-àNsimbe is the coach and his job is not under immediate threat," Kisekka told me on phone Friday night. "But he has no basic training, not even a local license, and we are looking to get him a course."

Kisekka went a step further by dismissing the Nsimbe talk as a fuss, saying "we all love him but there's something lacking and we want to put it in him."

I believe that Kisekka, while his intentions are noble, is missing one key point. Ugandan football is decidedly amateur; actually it lies at the very foot of the professional chart. So all it takes to coach a football club here is a fair knowledge of the game, which Nsimbe would have acquired playing all those years for the club, and basic man-management skills, which he has aplenty.

Training in a foreign college would certainly be good for Nsimbe, but what's good for the coach might not be good for the club. There's no telling what life in a big foreign city, riding on speed trains, living off coffee and sandwiches, socialising with people of different skin colours and speaking a language that is not Luganda, can do to someone of Nsimbe's diffident background.

Just one year of such a lifestyle and the previously modest (perhaps too much so) coach will be dripping with needless pomp. He will have learnt that, in his profession, image is everything.

Figure him coming to training with a clipboard in one hand and a stopwatch in another. Each work-out will be timed to the second. Players who show up a minute late will be docked wages, mobile phones will be banned, and players will be asked to learn English.

In the place of that rugged tracksuit, the coach's match-day dress will be upgraded to suits, ala Video Anyau, and will not work a single day into the new month unless the previous month's salary has been paid.

Amidst all the changes, he will lose touch with the players, who will immediately go into a silent revolt, something they frequently employ when they're unhappy about something.

And the collective effort that has been responsible for KCC's unbeaten run will be lost amidst the club's new-found coaching sophistication. And the results will go with it. Here's my point. Coaching in Uganda is down to a basic understanding of your players.

Coaches who have gotten the best results are not necessarily the most trained. In fact, there's an inverse relation between the two. There's no shortage of trained, sophisticated, clipboard wielding coaches who have failed to win anything. Nsimbe, without any of those, has delivered results.

Let the guy be. In Ugandan football, if it ain't broken, break it.