Vipers seek freshness after 18 topflight years

Gates open at midday, with stakeholders arriving to fun and entertainment from various musicians.  

A football match between Vipers Legends and Vipers Fans, and a friendly between Vipers and Kenya Caf Confederation Cup representatives, Police FC, later at 7pm spice up the day.

Additionally, the 2024/25 Vipers squad and technical team will be officially unveiled to the fans.

Conveyer belt

Club president Lawrence Mulindwa told NTV Sport Knights, which was broadcast live from Kitende on Monday night, that they will be celebrating the club’s achievements as well as embracing everyone who has been part of the journey.

“It is a day when we express our solidarity with the different stakeholders of Vipers Club and the friends of Vipers Sports Club,” he said.

“It's a day when we engage our fans, when we come together and then we fight forward and see how best we can push Vipers to the next level. So it's going to be a great day for us.” 

Since they navigated the lower divisions to arrive in the top tier in 2005, Vipers have been in ascendency, becoming a conveyor belt for Ugandan football.

Faruku Miya, Caesar Okhuti, Mike Sserumaga, Kizito Luwaga, Sulaiman Mutyaba, Owen Kasule, Habib Kavuma, Godfrey Walusimbi, Robert Kimuli, Tony Odur, Derrick Walulya and Hamza Muwonge read part of Vipers contribution to the Uganda Cranes over the years.

According to Mulindwa, “one of the aims of having this day is to bring everybody on board. “There are people who really did a lot for this club and we still remember them,” he said. 

“Some might have gone to other clubs, some of them might have stopped at Vipers sports club, some of them might even have gone outside the country.

“But what is important, we want to see that we appreciate their contribution during that time when they are here.

“We are also widening this annual celebration beyond fans to include sponsors, the government, our bankers and so many other people whom we think have helped this club to reach this far. It is bigger because we feel Vipers is now big enough.”

Wild ambitions

Mulindwa’s assertions of Vipers' stature are not unfounded. Since promotion to top flight football some 18 years ago, Vipers have won six Uganda Premier League titles, three Uganda Cups, Fufa Super Cup and Fufa Super 8, as well as played in Caf Champions League group stage.

“A very big vision which is being shared. We want to be number one at the continent level and we're aiming at that.” Quite an ambition! 

“There are so many indicators why you want to be there. We have talked about clubs that came and after two or three years they are nowhere to be mentioned, but we are here.”

Clubs that were Vipers (then Bunamwaya) peers from lower divisions such as Victors, Victoria University and Fire Masters among others have since dropped back or gone defunct altogether.

“But Vipers,” Mulindwa made a case from the centre of the pitch of a floodlit St Mary’s Stadium, Kitende, “from what you see, even where we are sitting here, someone who is going to leave football cannot have such a facility.

 “That means we came to stay. We shall permanently stay in this game and we shall continue promoting it.

“We're not looking at the local region. This is normally where the problem comes from. When people win the trophies, they celebrate for almost half of the year without thinking what is going to happen next.

“But for us, we normally think beyond Ugandan football and I'm happy that in the last 10 years, I think it has been Vipers which has taken the biggest number of trophies. 

“I think we have taken six (league titles) out of the 10 years. That's something great for a younger club like Vipers.” Only KCCA come close with five league titles in the last decade.

Plea to Government 

“So we have big plans for this club apart from having such a day on 27th. That day will be for stock taking. That's when we'll reflect and see how we are going to have the team in the next 10 years.

“We have plans of expanding the stadium which you see here. I'm not content with what we have, though it gives us a starting point.”

Mulindwa also used the opportunity to call on the government to help local investors like him by improving infrastructure such as access roads to St Mary’s, and even tax holidays.

“When you look at what Caf found lacking during their inspections, it is mainly the access roads,” explained Mulindwa, “so once again I call on the government to step in. This is not just for Mulindwa or Vipers but for the whole country.”

St Mary’s currently has a capacity of an estimated 15,000 or higher but “we have a blueprint for expansion to make it more modern in the future.”

Vipers also aim to have a fully-fledged academy beyond St Mary’s School, which has served as a feeder to the club all these years. 

“Already we have St Mary's, Kitende, but we want to be fully-fledged, to be beyond that one because now that (St Mary’s) is more of a school.

Mulindwa, Bunamwaya & football

“We are also aiming to have self-sustaining projects so that minus Mulindwa, minus any other funder who tries to help Vipers sports club, the club can stand on its own.

“These are projects that we are looking at and already we have plans to start real estate. Agriculture, we started and we are getting good money out of it.”

According to Mulindwa, 59, he fell in love with football as a young boy, playing it in primary school and at Namilyango College, where he also played boxing.  

His passion for the sport carried on with him at Makerere University, where he played some football for Livingston Hall. 

While at university, Mulindwa lived with his brother in an area Bunanwaya, Wakiso District.

From there, he kept following the lower side, Bunamwaya, which had current Vipers directors Haruna Kyobe and Thaddeus Kitandwe as some of the management.

“They were my friends and I got close to the team and that's when I became the chairman of the club.

Mulindwa, who helped the club with some injection of finances when he joined, was Bunamwaya chairman for four years before they were promoted to the Super Division (UPL) in 2005.

Mulindwa and Magogo

Bunamwaya’s promotion coincided with Mulindwa's rise to the country’s biggest football office, the Fufa Presidency. 

This was after a chaotic period that also saw the infamous 22-1 victory of SC Villa over Akol FC in 2003 among others.

Mulindwa, who called himself the “savior of Ugandan football” for his role in leading Fufa from the chaotic first half of the 2000s to a more sanitized FA and an improved national team, was at the helm for eight years before Moses Magogo took over in 2013.

Although Mulindwa told NTV Sport Knights that he voluntarily decided not to contest again, there was pressure from government and several warring factions at the time for him to be removed over governance issues.

Mulindwa and his predecessor, Magogo - with whom they served together for long, have had a love-hate relationship in the later years since they exchanged positions.

Most recently, Magogo had to publish a statement sounding down Mulindwa’s suggestions that a change of rules from goal difference to head-to-head last season seemed to target clubs like the latter’s.

But Mulindwa played down any rift. “We are friends. We might have disagreements sometimes, those things happen in football and life but deep down, we know there is nothing personal.”

Asked if he would consider returning as Fufa president, he was succinct. “Me coming back as Fufa President? That is undermining me,” he said to laughter from the panel.

Obua incident

On the incident in which former Cranes star David Obua was unceremoniously expelled from camp the evening before Uganda’s most important Afcon qualifier against Kenya in 2011, Mulindwa maintained he was not responsible.

According to him, State House abruptly confirmed a visit of President Museveni to the Cranes camp at 8am the eve of matchday, and at 10am, the Head of State was on his way.

“I told coach Bobby Williamson that the president was coming. I told him to make sure he organises all the players to be there. 

“It was around 11am when the convoy of the president was arriving and these players were coming from the dressing room to the middle of the field, where the president was going to address them.”

Once there, Mulindwa narrated, it was noted that Obua was missing. Then the president asked, “where is David?”

Bobby responded, according to Mulindwa: “David is not going to come because you told him that he should not ask questions. And it does not make any sense to him if he is not asking any questions.”

Mulindwa said that did not sit well with the coach and after the president left, Bobby went and addressed the players and told him (Obua) that ‘from now on I don't want you in my team because you have shown a lot of indiscipline.’

“So to answer your question,” Mulindwa concluded, “it was the coach who suspended David Obua.” 

A follow-up question on whether the above proved Mulindwa - who is known to fire coaches who sometimes do not see technical things from his lens - does not interfere with his coaches work was met with hilarity. 

“That is under corporate governance,” he said, “a professional man like me cannot interfere. He added, rather hilariously, “but I can intervene.”

On the Cranes near-misses from Afcon qualification during his time, only for the country’s 39-year jinx to end three years after he had left Fufa presidency, Mulindwa said he was at peace.

“Those things happen in football, but I'm very happy that we built a team, and it was just a matter of time. And everything has its own time,” he said.

“It took three years after I had left for the team to qualify, and qualify with almost the same squad that we had built. So I’m happy for that contribution.”

Vipers Day matches

Saturday, July 27

International friendly

Vipers sc VS Police FC (Kenya), 7pm

Fun game

Vipers Legends vs Vipers Fans Select, 3pm

Vipers 11 titles

Vipers Premier League titles: 2009/10, 2014/15, 2017/18, 2019/20, 2021/22, 2022/23 (six)

Uganda Cup titles: 2016, 2021, 2023 (three)

Fufa Super Cup: 2015

Fufa Super 8: 2019

Vipers SC Legends Squad vs Vipers fans

1). Hamza Muwonge (GK)

2). Joe Sebuliba (GK)

3). Derrick Walulya

4). Godfrey Walusimbi 

5). Habib Kavuma

6). Edward Ssali Biano

7). Ronald Seku 

8). Mohammed Zziwa 

9). Ismail Kazibwe

10). Owen Kasule

11). Robert Kimuli 

12). Sulaiman Mutyaba 

13). Luwaga Kizito

14). Yuda Mugalu

15). Ayub Kisalita

16). Mike Sserumaga

17). Andrew Ssali

18). Tonny Odur

19). Jamal Sijali

20). Faruku Miya 

21). Ceaser Okhuti

22). Hakim Ssenkumba

23). Arthur Ssemazi