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It is ironic that one of the most consistent statistics in Ugandan club football is the inconsistency of clubs. Virtually, all clubs, to a lesser extent KCCA, struggle to maintain proper structures and have to go through a dip whenever there is a change in management.
In fact, clubs can hardly sustain themselves when a big man leaves, yet it is through structures that clubs can be self-sustaining in the long term.
These well-documented structures are threefold: governance, management and fans. I was a young man when Hajji Abdul Kasujja founded KK Cosmos in the 1980s. He had the money and football experience to build a force, but the moment he lost interest in the club, it folded within a few days. The same can be said of Joseph Lusse, whose emerging giant killers, Buikwe Red Stars, hit the breaks the moment he got incarcerated.
Express FC is already trapped in a similar snare and SC Villa cannot be spared in this.
In general, the absence of structures is also partly to blame for the lack of unity among Uganda Premier League clubs, something that continues to dent their progress and lobbying power as a unit or power centre.
Clubs hardly put structures into practice because they know Fufa, the custodian of the rules on structures, mostly focuses on is control and dominance over them.
Indeed, Fufa rarely encourages clubs to enforce structures and only pulls out the rulebook selectively.
Recently, Fufa applied the trick to Jinja SS, Kyetume FC and most lately, Arua Hill.
So, at a time when every club is content with running its own structure, the much-needed commerciality of domestic football continues to be a pipe dream because it is structures that form the core business sense of club football.
In fact, it is through these structures that many potential business partners or sponsors come on board.
In the absence of a clear separation of powers in management, accounts, finance and procurement, among others, there is a limit for business partners that can trust a club with money.
On the other hand, proper structures can act as conveyor belts to develop players within clubs.
In Uganda, players are the biggest cash cows but tend to be quickly discarded after retirement. In the developed football world, former players are moving beyond the limitations of coaching to dominate other football fields such as management, panellists, analysts, commentators, ambassadors.
What helps KCCA stay afloat and be consistent across different management teams is that all positions in leadership are collective and can change at any moment.
Their structure also helps them assimilate retired players into the system more than any other club.
From a progressive perspective, streamlined club structures provide the foundation to attract government support, especially in form of taxation and funding.
Pause for a minute to think what URA collects from UPL games; it is much less than a Kikuubo shop because there are no proper records for the clubs.
But if clubs can organise themselves properly as a unit, government can easily help them to generate revenue for a win-win situation.
This involves keeping books of account, keeping youth away from idleness, and considering the social and economic impact on communities.
If government can spend billions on musicians whose earners are a few individuals, wouldn’t the state triple that for an organisation of thousands of footballers and the job opportunities from indirect beneficiaries?
The answer lies in the numbers of which I’m convinced football overshadows music.
Mr Immanuel B. Misagga is a football investor and SC Villa President emeritus.
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