Stages of football development world over remain a key element in the general growth of the beautiful game.
This was the gist of the message contained in the key note address of the FUFA President, Eng. Moses Magogo to the West Nile football leaders.
Eng. Magogo was accompanied by the second Vice President Darius Mugoye, FUFA Executive Committee members Dr. Bernard Patrick Ogwel and Rasoul Aliga alongside the historic FUFA national teams’ officer.
While addressing the diligent servants of the game in the country (football leaders) in West Nile region whom he met at Desert Breeze Hotel in Arua Municipality, the FUFA President fronted empowerment of the respective regions as a key priority in the eventual process of football development.
“Regions are the bed rock of football development in the country. FUFA is on steady fast road to empower the regions to regulate football” Eng. Magogo noted.
He cited clear examples where regions ought to engage the respective opinion leaders to include politicians, religious sect leaders, businessmen and ordinary fans in a bid to grow further the wings of football.
“FUFA has empowered the regional football associations to regulate the game of football. Regions have to open up relations with opinion leaders to market the game further. Regions also need to have the means to generate their own monies. . Football is a very expensive venture to run that is why there is need for collective efforts. At FUFA, the first step we undertook was to improve marketing by recruiting trained and professional marketers” he added.
His address was center alongside four areas – financial, international organization of FUFA, improvement relationship between the government and the federation as well as the general football development.
Financially, FUFA made a great stride to improve the budget from Ug.shs 4 billion to Ug.shs 14 billion.
He cited the advancement in technical department where there has been a tremendous increment in the number of CAF licensed coaches from 28 in 2012 to over 500 by 2017 with 38 CAF A licences.
Other areas have been the professionalization of club football with Azam TV leading the sponsorship of the top flight league.
Referees’ payments drastically improved from 20,000/ per head to 150,000 for every match handled.
Fans are now more interested in watching local football than before and the performance of the country’s representatives at the CAF Club competitions has improved.
“It is not by accident that our clubs KCCA and Vipers have done well on the continent. It has been performance on continent is not by accident” he remarked.
Uganda was also among the first countries of the seven on the continent to take upon the CAF Club licencing system,
There is a national youth league (FUFA Juniors U-17 league), national Women Elite league (now in the third season) and the CECAFA Women football tournament was played in Uganda for the first time.
He also hinted on the five year strategic plan for the regions where the regional facilitation per year improved from Ug.shs 1m to Ug.shs 25M.
About 300 balls to be distributed to regions, according at least four courses per region in the areas of coaching, sports medicine, refereeing and administration
The West Nile region leaders lauded the current FUFA leadership where a massive 247 level one coaching courses have been undertaken.
Only in West Nile region alone, 239 coaches have been educated.
They posed their biggest challenge been sub-standard sports infrastructure.
Prior to the Arua meeting, Eng. Magogo also met with football leaders in Pader district where he also watched a football game.
In Arua, he watched the action packed encounter between Onduparaka and Sadolin Paints at the Betway Green Light Stadium.
The well attended game ended in a goal-less draw.
