Uganda: Fans Too Must Fight for Their Space in Football

6 September 2022
The Observer (Kampala)
By Ben Misagga

I am one of the few people in Ugandan football who have experienced all forms of leadership, right from the grassroots as an ordinary volunteer.

Through the years, the most challenging and exciting role was being the SC Villa fans coordinator at the turn of the millennium. That positioned me to be in the middle of football's power game. On one hand, I had to mobilize fans for games, lobby their interests to the executive and then follow up on the issues.

Both groups recognized my bridging role and that of other like minds in the sport. In a bid to drum up more fans influence in the running of the sport, I and a group of football enthusiasts started the National Union of Football Fans (NUFFA) as a lobby group for fans' interests.

The like minds included Francis Ntalazi, Joe Kigozi, Joseph Kizito, Sunday Manara, Uncle Money and Edward Kalungi, among others.

It came on the back of high-level mismanagement in Fufa and it was this umbrella association that backed Dr Lawrence Mulindwa to ascend to football's top office. We were lucky to have the backing of then minister of Education and Sports, Namirembe Bitamazire, as well as leading eminent figures in the sport.

But along the way as professional careers pushed the founders into different realms, NUFFA lost its way. The Fufa executive at the time also viewed NUFFA as a potential power centre and, therefore, a threat.

Since then, fans have been displaced to be on the periphery of football management. Apart from Villa, most clubs were even coerced by Fufa to scrap the position of fans coordinator. At the moment, groups of fans across clubs are alienated from one another and it is in Fufa's inter- est that there is no common harmony.

It is on this background that I appeal to fans to forge new unity if they are to push their clubs to seek equity at the football high table.

Fans are the chief consumers of the game and their absence from stadiums of late only serves to hurt clubs, not Fufa which relies almost entirely on donations and sponsorships.

It is not too late for fans to reclaim their position in domestic football but that starts with creating unity amongst all Uganda Premier League clubs. They can start by recreating NUFFA as pressure group. We were just about 10 people when NUFFA started but we managed to lay the foundation for a new Fufa executive.

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