Prime
Darius Mugoye: Football’s diplomat, silent giant goes to rest
Darius Mugoye served as Fufa second vice president untill his death. PHOTO/JOHN BATANUDDE
What you need to know:
Until his death, Mugoye owned St. Mary’s FC that featured in the Kampala Regional Leagues. He started his journey of administration to the top in 2008 where he was voted the treasurer of Kawempe District Football Association.
Darius Mugoye was a man with a calm demeanor and level-headedness that worked to unite football.
Mugoye was known in education sectors but has been a powerful but silent figure in the football circles where he has served as an administrator since 2008.
Mugoye, 42, breathed his last on Tuesday morning after a short illness at Mengo Hospital. He was last seen in public on October 27 when Uganda Crested Cranes beat Cameroon 2-0 in their first leg of the Olympic qualifier at the Fufa Technical Centre in Njeru.
Earned his stripes
Until his death, Mugoye owned St. Mary’s FC that featured in the Kampala Regional Leagues. He started his journey of administration to the top in 2008 where he was voted the treasurer of Kawempe District Football Association.
He was elevated to the secretary of Kampala RFA in 2012, a year before representing Kampala at the Fufa assembly as a delegate.
During that election held on August 21, 2013, the calm administrator was elected into the Fufa executive in a new regime that ushered in Moses Magogo to succeed Lawrence Mulindwa at the Nile Resort Hotel in Jinja.
Mugoye not only became a member of the 13-man executive but the third in command behind his secondary school-mate at Ntare Justus Mugisha as Magogo's second vice president.
Leader of business
Mugoye has been praised by both sides of the football divide as a uniting factor who sort audience and advice from all.
Fufa’s spokesman and a close friend, Ahmed Hussein has called him the ‘Prime Minister’ who dedicated his life to football.
“He thrived to steer football to the right path to the satisfaction of both the politicians in football and the technocrats; he was like the prime minister who led the [Fufa] government business,” Hussein told Daily Monitor.
Prime minister they say. Indeed, Magogo has tasked Mugoye to lead a number of crucial projects.
In 2013, he was appointed the secretary of the licensing committee that oversaw the introduction of the crucial club licensing and later became the chairman competitions committee.
He was later appointed to steer the adhoc committee for the women football competitions that birthed the women’s leagues – the Fufa Women Elite League and then the Women’s Super League.
He has been the chairman of the Fufa Sacco that has grown to Shs500m in three years.
The diplomat
Mugoye is respected in equal measure and revered outside the Fufa walls.
“If the Fufa president thought of a replacement, then I would have advised him to pick Darius [Mugoye],” long-serving and controversial football administrator and politician Faisal Muhammad says.
“He respected everyone’s views and related with all. We shall miss him dearly,” he added.
Perhaps, that’s the reason Magogo appointed him to head the Fufa stakeholders, strategic relations and innovations committee in 2022. He was also a key member of the committee that won the Uganda-Kenya-Tanzania East Africa Pamoja Africa Cup of Nations hosting rights.
Mugoye will be laid to rest tomorrow at his ancestral home in Rubanga, Sheema District. His body will be taken to Namirembe Cathedral for a church service before a public viewing at Nabweru grounds where his team plays from.
