Worry about how quickly UPL clubs fold

Rumours that Gaddafi owner Lt. Eddy Ochieng put the club up for sale have stirred up conversations. Even though the battle-hardened soldier dispelled the rumors, the events leading to the team’s relegation after only two seasons are concerning.

Like many others that have come and gone, Gaddafi arrived with pomp and glamour, promising much but bowing out before achieving anything tangible.

Ochieng took charge of Gaddafi in 2019 after spending almost seven years in the dungeons of the Jinja District League. The Soldier Boys became the 85th team to play in the Uganda Premier League since the turn of the millennium.

Gaddafi might be safe for now, but this is a familiar script in the Uganda Premier League. Both Tooro United and Arua Hill, which were promoted together with Gaddafi in 2022, are all gone. Not just relegated, but they are slowly disappearing from the face of football. Kyetume and Blacks Power, promoted a year later in 2023, were quickly relegated. The latter has slipped further off the national radar.

Fifa’s red flags

This trend should be a cause for concern. Fifa's study three years ago revealed worrying statistics: Uganda has one of the youngest average ages of clubs.

The study showed that Ugandan clubs had one of the lowest lifespans in the world, at 29 years. This also means that the Ugandan league has one of the biggest turnovers of clubs. The average is far below the continental median of 42 years.

Interestingly, Fufa founded in 1924, is among the oldest member associations in Africa. Only neighbors DR Congo and Egypt, formed in 1919 and 1924, are older than Uganda’s federation. However, to put some perspective, DR Congo’s first team was founded in 1929, and their average year for formation is 1967, a year before the first Uganda Premier League season.

Egypt’s median club foundation year is 1958, with clubs averaging 63 years, with the oldest, Al Ahly, founded in 1907, and the youngest in 2009. Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Tunisia, and Tanzania are the other countries besides Egypt and DRC, whose club football is rated among the top seven leagues on the continent. Morocco (77), Algeria (73), and South Africa (45) are all above the continent’s average foundation age of 42, while Tunisia and Tanzania follow closely with 36 years. Somehow, there is a positive correlation between the strength of a league and the longevity of their clubs.

Alarm bells

According to the Fifa report, the average foundation year for Ugandan clubs is 1992, whose source of data from Uganda was Fufa. Fifa’s findings would put the average age of clubs in the football pyramid closer to 32 years. The Fifa report covered the whole football pyramid.

However, an independent study that this writer undertook specifically on topflight teams from the year 2000 shows that the numbers are not encouraging.

For purposes of clarity, clubs that have changed ownership or location, the year of the takeover will be considered the foundation year. Simply because the general assumption is that the new owners were circumventing the long natural process of growth through the pyramids. It is also a logical conclusion that when a club changes ownership, branding, and location, then the original ceases to exist!

Back to the numbers. Of the 16 clubs that featured in the premier league last season, only Maroons, Express, and UPDF have been in the topflight since its formation in 1968.

Notably, the two armed forces sides have often alternated in and out. Police, which just bounced back from the Fufa Big League, joined the topflight a year later in 1969.

KCCA has been there since 1974, and SC Villa since 1979. URA, Vipers, and Bul are the only surviving members of the 2000s. They debuted in 2002, 2006, and 2011, respectively. The period between 1975 and 2000 was the worst. No team formed around that time exists in the national leagues! Probably, because most were institutional teams that perished with mergers, rebranding and dissolutions of their mother bodies.

Of the 16 teams that started the new millennium in the 2000 season, only Villa, KCCA, Express, Police, UPDF, and Mbale Heroes will feature in the new season. That is if we ignore the fact that UPDF and Mbale Heroes wear plastic faces representing the old institution and community, respectively.

UPDF bought their current status from The Saints in 2017 after their original Simba went down. The Saints had only lived with that identity for four years after buying off Mukono Pirates.

The original Mbale Heroes, which morphed from Dairy Heroes, was dissolved in 2019 after failing to keep afloat. The new owners bought off Kiboga Young and changed to the old identity.

Low life expectancy

Analyzing the data for teams that have played in the league for the last five seasons, the average age stands at 21.4 years.

If we exclude the five outlier teams that were originally formed before the 80s – Villa, Express, Maroons, KCCA & Police – the average age drops down to just 11.3 years!

Additionally, the average time between when a club was founded and when it reached the premier league is four years. NEC, which got promoted last season, is only seven years old. Lugazi will be five years old when they debut in September.

That is the time it takes a team that is ascending consistently from the district level to the top. Out of the 35 teams that have been promoted to the UPL since the formation of the Fufa Big League in 2009, only eight exist in the national divisions – five in UPL and three in FBL. That’s about 14% in the topflight.