By Jjagwe Robert
The Uganda Secondary School Sports Association (USSSA) is having the National Ball Games 1 taking place in Bukedea and Ngora, Eastern Uganda. These games bring together all schools in Uganda to compete against each other for further qualification to represent Uganda at the East Africa School games and later also beyond the Eastern Africa borders.
One of the most unfortunate developments in our Country today is the excessive obsession with Football. Even at the ongoing National School games where there are over 20 different Sports being played, you again see mostly Football videos and updates and almost nothing from the other Sports.
This is why some of us complain about the 17 billion Ugx parliament allocation to football. Of course that kind of money means that football can bankroll so many of our Sports journalists to keep only football in the Media.
This is bad manners of the highest Order. All our Sports matter. And not all Ugandans can play football. This Country has 45 million Ugandans. How many of them play football…?? How many of these 45 million people does the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) have in its Database?
I want to caution the USSSA President Justus Mugisha to be very careful with this kind of bad manners because he also doubles as the Vice President of FUFA. Mostly Football games are being Broadcast on the Livestream Stream of USSSA TV, Social Media mostly has football updates, etc.
If our other Sports are going to be marginalized like this then that becomes Conflict of interest on the side of Justus Mugisha. I strongly condemn this unfairness in our Sports Sector and urge the USSSA President to get on top of the situation and ensure balanced coverage of the games.
In fact the first mistake he appears to have made is to have these games without even engaging the Presidents of those games to see how any gaps can be plugged.
He must also remember that the new Sports Act does not allow USSSA to hold any games without the proper and clear authorization from the Parent Sports Federation. For the record USSSA is not a Sports Federation. So when we agree in good faith to work with them and then we see this level of Marginalisation of our Sports then this is not good at all.
Under the New Sports Act, USSSA actually does not fall anywhere. It is not a National Sports Federation, Sports Association, Academy, Community Club, etc. At best USSSA currently looks like a Promoter of Sports and the new Sports Act now has clear guidelines on how one becomes a Promoter.
I therefore want to advise and encourage USSSA to hold an urgent meeting with all Sports Federation leaders at the earliest opportunity to address serious gaps and inequalities in coverage, marketing and promotion of all Sports at the National School games.
The USSSA games must not be seen as a clandestine promotion of football above other Sports especially since the USSSA President is the Vice President of FUFA.
Jjagwe Robert
– Sports Marketing Enthusiast
– President of the Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA)
