15 November 2009
Kampala — UGANDA football body FUFA goes to polls on November 28. But the exercise has been engulfed in court battles. Proline soccer academy started it all followed by Express FC, Mbale and Kabale, whose presidential hopeful Godfrey Kwizera is under investigation over his roles in earlier FUFA administrations.
Similar wars have also rocked boxing and table tennis.
The scrambles lead one to believe that most aspirants are out for selfish ends but not for the good of sports. It bends towards monetary interests.
Local sports are by law amateur and their leaders expected to work as volunteers. International bodies IOC, FIFA, AIBA, IAAF, etc dictate that solving disputes must be through arbitration. Kampala lawyer Charles Egou last week urged Ugandans to avoid rushing disputes to courts of law while presenting a paper "Sports and the Laws of Uganda" to the Uganda Sports Press Association.
Uganda's Constitution mandates an aggrieved party to seek redress in courts but Egou argues that litigation "is not only expensive and time consuming, but also leaves the losing party permanently injured with costs".
Warring parties need remember that sports thrive on private sponsorship. Entrepreneurs hate litigations because evidence adduced exposes a lot of murk to the public which they fear to be associated with.
It high time Ugandan bodies voted only willing volunteers to top positions. Otherwise they stand to lose monetary support.
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