Institutional sexism alive and well in Ugandan sport

Just this year, the She Cranes covered themselves in glory when they took part in the Netball World Cup.

Further inside annals of Ugandan sport ripe with the stench of mediocrity is a chronicle of another senior World Cup appearance. It was midwifed by the She Cranes back in 1979.

With such an illustrious past, one would expect women sport in Uganda to be given its due. It has been given its due alright; or be it from a jaundiced viewpoint.

There is no significant mainstreaming, inclusion or normalisation of women sport. A track record of success hasn’t insulated women sport in Uganda from always being in some kind of a scrape.

This confirms the deepest fears that lack of women’s progress in Ugandan sport is a residual quantity of institutional sexism. Women sport in Uganda has for a protracted period been screaming for opportunity.

Unfortunately, its plea has not been met with a commitment to equal representation.
Women sports personalities have continually been shortchanged.

Bouts of lip service have left many of them exasperated. Yet they haven’t buckled. The She Cranes encap-sulate a monolithic layer that defines women national teams — an admirable fighting spirit that never lets heads droop even in the harshest of conditions.

She Cranes’ eighth place finish at this year’s Netball World Cup was yet another classic case of a women national team courageously running on fumes.

That She Cranes players even contemplated holding a fundraising car wash to make ends meet in the run up to the World Cup was such a damning indictment!

The Lady Cranes, who yesterday kicked off their Africa Olympic 7s qualifying tourna-ment in South Africa with three pool matches, had to also go through a meat grinder to make the trip to Johannesburg.

It’s hard to imagine that their male counterparts would be allowed to face similar unimaginable horrors. Not that the men don’t have odds to beat. They do, but the scale is hardly comparable.

Women’s sport in Uganda always gets the short end of the stick as the recent travails of the national basketball team attest. What the Gazelles went through shouldn’t be wished on any national team.
Last year’s landmark win of the Zone VI Championships earned the Gazelles boarding passes to the All Africa Games and AfroBasket Women 2015.

After giving their all in training, Gazelles players learnt at the 11th hour that they weren’t going to figure at the All Africa Games.

The Gazelles also very nearly missed out on the AfroBasket Women 2015, arriving in the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde just hours before their first match against Gabon.

After going into break trailing by four, the effects of jet lag and brilliance of Geraldine Robert took the game away from them in a 70-39 blowout for Gabon (they made a fist of it on Friday against Africa’s No.4 side Mozambique, losing 73-50).

Doubtless things would have panned out differently had the buildup to the tournament been more robust. The girls wanna have fun, but we won’t let them be.

Baffling stuff! I will tell what else is baffling — the failure of Education and Sports minister Jessica Alupo, a woman, to shine the spotlight on the full blown institutional sexism that is ubiquitous in her docket.

Artificiality of football leaders manifests itself in pitch choices

Watching match day two of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign unfold, one got the sense that natural pitches face an existential threat in Africa. All matches your columnist saw on telly were played on artificial pitches.

It was doubly shocking because the continent’s impeccably great weather is supposed to encourage a strong appetite for greenery. Or so we thought! We have instead seen a startling antithesis with the proliferation of artificial pitches.

The response from African football federations to the charge of an unhealthy sustained mushrooming of artificial pitches is that having a well manicured pitch is a dizzyingly high-entry pursuit.

Artificial pitches, they add, help save money for a rainy day since they can be used maximally with little or no signs of wear and tear.

None of this appeals to traditionalists who have flashed a yellow card at artificial pitches on account that they are not demonstrably better than grass football fields.

In truth, artificial pitches have myriads of problems under their belt. The surface temper-ature of artificial grass in tropical areas such as sub-Saharan Africa can be quite unfor-giving. This in itself poses a string of problems with the pick being making players sus-ceptible to injuries.

African football is reputed for having players whose steely personality predisposes them to being enthusiastic in the tackle. An unforgiving hot synthetic pitch will take this calling card away from them.

The dangers of warming up (pun intended) to artificial pitches are hardly imagined. They bear an uncanny similarity with shooting oneself in the foot.

Yet African football honchos continue boldly bellowing ‘my foot!’ to anyone who questions the decision to roll out artificial pitches.

Last month Fufa president Moses Magogo did just that while presiding over the commencement of work that will see the once-upon-a-time lush strip at KCCA Stadium (also known as Philip Omondi Stadium) replaced with a synthetic pitch. The official Fufa website quoted Magogo purring about how the AstroTurf will best serve its purpose in Lugogo.

“We are moving in an era where,” Magogo said, “Kampala will be hosting international matches on the artificial turf”.

The dawn of a new era it is then! Just to refresh our memories, dear reader, the dis-course of artificial pitches’ suitability has not changed one bit.

When Fifa opted to have all matches of this year’s women’s World Cup on artificial pitches, its decision was met with a public backlash.

There was a general consensus that women’s football was being given a slap in the face. Fifa’s attempt at ‘destigmatizing’ synthetic pitches had failed spectacularly.

The reception though has been much more favourable in Africa. Sepp Blatter and Africa have been singing from the same hymn sheet since the continent helped him — or be it with loads of stuffed envelopes — ascend the Fifa throne in 1998.

Africa has also for good measure kept Blatter at the steering wheel of world football for close to two decades.

Even with the emerging fissures in Fifa’s corruption wall of denial widening, Africa has promised to stick with whoever Blatter endorses as his successor.

Because of this unfettered support, the departing Fifa president hasn’t given Africa GOAL projects sparingly. These projects whose accountability is often mired in controversy have peppered Africa with synthetic pitches.

With most world football tournaments being played on natural pitches, you can’t help but fear for Africa.

The greed of its leaders is not for the first time placing it in an abyss of despair.

What we now know....

We now know that Charity Trust CC is the undisputed nearly side in the men’s topflight national cricket league.

We know that Charity has this season come off as second best in photo-finishes with the league’s protagonists, Nile and Tornado.

We also know that owing to this the relegation axe is hovering menacingly above Charity. Losing yet another photo finish against Tornado last Sunday barely helped the club’s plans to do a Houdini.

Charity was welcoming back its inspirational skipper, the all-rounder Jonathan Sebanja, from a semi-professional stint in the UK. Sebanja could only do as much as his side unravelled.

We know that Charity are the second club of many fans. The club’s near certain relega-tion in what can only be described as depressingly sad circumstances will only win it more sympathy votes.
The club could, however, do with much more than just sympathy at this juncture. That much we know!