Prime
Why dispensing with the services of Fred Kajoba hardly set a dangerous precedent
Author: Robert Madoi is a sports journalist and analyst. PHOTO/FILE/NMG.
What you need to know:
- The jury is still out on McKinstry’s tactics, with many concluding that the Northern Irishman’s approach is decidedly minimalist.
Over the past years, Ugandan football has been subsumed by detailed and often densely argued accounts of Cranes coaches terrified by a sense of culinary inadequacies. It was shortly after the turn of the second millennium when the decision of one Cranes player to eat the solitary chicken gizzard up for grabs offended the sensibilities of Harrison Okagbue.
The Nigerian tactician always demanded that that prized piece cut from the digestive tracts be placed on his plate whenever chicken was on the menu. And it always was. But the night before the Cranes faced Togo’s Sparrowhawks in Lome, the bespectacled Nigerian was left seething after learning that someone had ingested his coveted muscular stomach.
For Muhammad Abbas, astonishment was registered after his instinctive, if ultimately naive, decree that Cranes players be served chicken drumsticks and not wings fell on deaf ears. When the chefs at the Cranes camp in Namboole evolved only negligibly in their abilities to adhere to the decree, the enigmatic Egyptian blew a gasket in the full glare of the media. How were his charges expected to boss physical battles, he seethed!
While current Cranes coach Johnny McKinstry has not had an Okagbue or Abbas moment, strands of him savouring culinary delights can be glimpsed in his vast collection of cookbooks. He recently told The Observer thus: “I make pizzas and hamburgers at home. I prepare lasagna, Indian and Chinese food. I find cooking really relaxing.”
While food and all it represents has been so relaxing for McKinstry to the point of not teasing out any astonishing anecdotes, there have been other farcical goings-on to tuck into. Fred Kajoba’s recent decision not to be a passive recipient of a dismissal letter from a Cranes coaching role particularly left many tongues hanging out. Kajoba, who has put a number of Cranes goalkeepers through their paces, was cut loose after he opted to step out of the Cranes’ Covid-19 bubble without McKinstry’s express consent. The development sparked the curiosity of many observers that had long picked out friction between the two protagonists.
It is alleged that, despite performing his duties fearsomely well, McKinstry had always wanted to have Ibrahim Mugisha supplant Kajoba in the Cranes backroom staff. The veracity of this claim is of course called into question by the fact that Mugisha did not take centre-stage when Kajoba eventually departed. Instead, it was Cranes legend Sadiq Wassa that filled the void created. Yet merely zooming in on the manner of Kajoba’s departure is, well, quite reductive. What is critical is to make sense of events that occasioned dispensing with Kajoba’s services.
The jury is still out on McKinstry’s tactics, with many concluding that the Northern Irishman’s approach is decidedly minimalist. What many have chosen not to scope out is the 35-year-old coach’s professionalism. Careful, diligent and exacting, McKinstry has not taken his eye off a big picture that includes more than just gizzards and drumsticks. While zooming in, McKinstry is always careful enough not to get lost in the details. He is diligent and exacting enough to ensure that details that would otherwise set bad precedents do not go unpunished.
It’s against this backdrop that Kajoba lost his job with the Cranes. Given the path of the pandemic, sporting units have to be relentless in their determination to enforce Covid-19 preventive measures. KCCA, which failed to grasp the urgency of this moment by articulating minimal attention to small details, paid dearly when a string of Covid-19 positive cases saw it lose a Caf Confederation Cup match by forfeiture.
Inaction always comes at a grave cost. Coronavirus has shown the best way of avoiding a crisis is to get ahead of it. By cutting Kajoba loose, McKinstry showed to everyone in his ensemble that actions have consequences.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @robertmadoi
