Prime
Eastern Uganda join the wagon to push Uganda Cranes to the 2026 World Cup
Nile Special's Johnson Ssebuggwawo with some of the winners that rightly called the scores. PHOTO/FRED MWAMBU
What you need to know:
With all the individual and Uganda Cranes success, none of the generations has been able to break the proverbial ceiling and take the nation to the Fifa World Cup.
The eastern region has been known to produce some of the biggest names in the local football scene since time immemorial.
From the likes of Philip Omondi - highly regarded as the best ever- and Fred Isabirye who featured for Uganda Cranes at the 1978 Afcon through the generations to the 2016 Africa player of the year Denis Onyango and the national team's midfield kingpin Khalid Aucho - the only export to have won two league titles with an unbeaten record in two different countries.
With all the individual and Uganda Cranes success, none of the generations has been able to break the proverbial ceiling and take the nation to the Fifa World Cup.
The latter two -Onyango and Aucho- were part of the 2018 team that was too near to bring joy to the nation but Mohammed Salah and Egypt happened.
Nile Special, one of the team's official sponsors,
recently rolled a campaign for the fans to be part of the process by contributing financially in order to make the 2026 American dream come true.
Over the weekend, the campaign dubbed 'Cranes Kabbo' led by Onyango headed eastwards to the football-mad Jinja City to leverage on the watch parties as Brazil and Netherlands crashed out to Croatia and Lionel Messi's Argentina in the quarterfinals of the ongoing Fifa World cup in Qatar.
"The eastern region is full of talent and has very passionate football fans,"William Akankwasa, the company's Eastern regional sales manager told media in the sidelines of the watch party that also had rugby fans dance to Jinja Hippos' Jacob Ocen's last minute try for Rugby 7 Cranes 38-5 loss to USA in the World Rugby 7s in Cape Town, South Africa.
"So while fans enjoy the WC experience supporting other countries in Qatar. Nile has given them a platform to tangibly push our own Cranes to the next showpiece in America by contributing sh.50 per bottle that they buy," Akankwasa added.
