Uganda pulls out of woodball World Cup

The pain came in instalments. On the eve of the scheduled team's travel to the 9th Woodball World Cup Championship in Shaoxing, China, the 16-man team was trimmed to 12 players. The 'unlucky' four who were unexpectedly dropped took turns to mourn.

Kampala University's Tonny Sekyeene was particularly hurt that he was denied exams as the university allowed him to concentrate on his trip, his first outside the country.

As the athletes were briefed and told to go and prepare for the departure of the first batch that included a flag off at the National Council of Sports headquarters on Saturday at 10:00am, an unexpected turn of events happened.

Collins Ssemmanda, the General Secretary of the Uganda Woodball Federation (UWbf) dropped a bomb at 10:50pm.

"We shall not be travelling to China due to the fact that we have not been able to secure the funds that can enable us compete at the World Cup," the communication read in part.

The official communication would come at 9:20am from the UWbF president Paul Mark Kayongo reiterating the change of programme. 

Painful 

During Friday's final briefing at the UWbF offices, the plan was to have the first batch leave on Saturday to play in the fairway competition. They would then be joined by another batch on Monday that would complete the team.

It was a painful scene as some players were seen weeping with others comforting them. It was a sombre mood!

Team captain Daniel Apita was hurt by the fact that this team had dedicated training time in camp without any allowances. Yet it all counted for nothing.

"I congratulate my team members because everyone has been very focused throughout this time. It hurts that we haven't travelled but let's stay calm for future engagements," he said.

Apita and Crescent Rwanyombya were actually flagged off on Friday afternoon by the Prisons Sports officers.

The ladies team captain Joan Mukoova discussed the pains players have to endure.

"Players have really invested a lot that is quite unimaginable. Some had to make a choice between being on the national team and keeping their jobs but they chose the former. Some have debts from passport processing because they had to go back to process express national IDs. Some were hoping for breakthroughs at work to come from their performances that they hoped to exhibit in China," Mukoova said.

System failure

The hope for the team's travel was that the travel agent would accept at least 20% but changed to 50% cash down payment due to high air ticket fees at the time.

Ssemmanda said that they could not raise that amount and had to call off the trip.

The woodball federation had done its part. After holding the three-week camp, they mobilised funds from various sources with the Chinese Embassy ($3,000), Uganda Prisons Services (Shs21m) and National Lottery and Gaming Regulatory Authority (Shs6m) making contributions. 

Interaction with government were especially heartbreaking as the Minister of Sports Patrick Ogwang reiterated that there's no funding left for other sports federations as all priority is on the football National team and the completion of facilities for the Pamoja Afcon bid.

But he promised that at least some of woodball's quarterly allocation would be availed to enable their travel.

Having missed the first quarterly contribution, the UWbF was counting on that money but since it wasn't coming quickly, a cash payment wasn't possible to the travel agent.

Ssemmanda said they had engaged a money lender who changed his mind at the last minute.

Why it matters

Although football is the most popular sport not only in Uganda but in the world, it has barely won medals for the country. It has been athletics, boxing, basketball and other emerging sports that have shone global limelight on Uganda.

Uganda's best performance in football has been a second-place finish in the 1978 Africa Cup of Nations. 

But what has made football gain significant funding, Shs10b of the Shs17b government allocates to the Sports sub-sector, has been its strong advocacy and the fact that they are able to organise regional events effectively. With a strong representation in the Parliament, they have also been able to have their voice heard.

But the focus on football is killing the spirit of other athletes who are trying to find their footing in other sports.