Pandemic could as well entrench match-fixing
What you need to know:
The coronavirus outbreak has forced choices Fufa would rather avoid.
The images that came out of the 13th staging of Uganda Youth Football Association’s annual general meeting
last week showed attendees elbow-to-elbow. If as an old adage reminds us actions speak louder than words, then
the optics in the age of physical distancing mandates were unmistakably bad.
That some strands of strict adherence to set procedures could be glimpsed in occasional wearing of face coverings was
unfortunately not good enough.
Yet this is a tiny sliver of the pandemic’s attendant effects on Ugandan football.
The coronavirus outbreak has forced choices Fufa would rather avoid.
Ugandan football faces towering challenges the likes of which it hasn’t confronted for generations. Hard-won gains are not only under threat, but also worth fighting for.
The vast majority of Fufa’s piecemeal responses (such as opting to drip-feed its member associations information about
Fifa’s Covid-19 relief fund) have provoked furious reactions with a cross section of stakeholders.
The squabbles have been good entertainment, but that’s all they have been.
The bigger picture looks grim, and, unfortunately, not even handouts from Fifa’s Covid-19 relief fund or any other patchwork of irregular approaches will ease the pain.
For the past few years or so, we have received sobering testaments that have indicated that match-fixing in its variant
forms is a silent cancer in Ugandan football. With the pandemic having ensured that the brakes are suddenly slammed
on the finances of different stakeholders, expect this cancer to metastasise.
Pre-pandemic, some of the brazen acts of match-fixing could hardly have been more explicit. Yet for reasons best known
to them, Fufa officials neither provided an adequate explanation of what was going on, nor detailed a plan to right a wrong. It’s a laughable fiction that match fixing will be wished away.
Now more than ever, Fufa has to ensure that the cancer doesn’t spread to the heart and soul of the beautiful game.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, opacity tailored to evade scrutiny will only make a bad situation worse.
It should as a matter of fact be seen for what it is – complicity
