By Denis Jjuuko
On a recent Saturday, I visited a construction site in Busukuma just outside Gayaaza around lunch hour. The workers were a bit restless. I thought it was about their lunch or an impending payment. Many construction site owners pay their workers’ weekly wages on Saturday evening.
One of the workers whispered to another that he would prefer being paid half day for that Saturday so that he could immediately leave the site for the weekend. Something big must have been bothering him as well as a few of his colleagues.
He decided to shoot his shot by approaching his boss — the site ‘engineer.’ The other workers were peeping from the scaffoldings to see if his request would be granted. The ‘engineer’ had a deadline to make and refused to grant the request.
I heard the dejected worker telling his colleagues that their boss has instead offered them his portable radio set. Apparently, the workers had wanted to go catch a soccer match.
This wasn’t an Arsenal versus Manchester United match in the English Premier League or another of those highly billed European matches. European soccer has taken a summer break. Teams are in pre-season tours around the world, except Africa, and busy strengthening their squads in the ongoing modern day slave market that they call the transfer window.
The match the workers were eager to watch at the expense of half their daily wages was at Nakivubo Stadium in downtown Kampala. Why would workers in Busukuma want to go downtown Kampala to catch a match? What match was it?
It was a group match in the Masaza Cup between the Kyadondo County and Bugerere County. Busukuma is in Kyadondo hence their interest. Many youths were storming Nakivubo to support their teams.
Later, images emerged of a nearly full Nakivubo Stadium with many supporters cheering their teams, something rarely seen nowadays between the country’s biggest soccer clubs in the national league. How did Buganda get there?
Although the revamped Masaza Cup, a competition between Buganda’s 18 counties has been on for a while and the final sees the Mandela National Stadium at Namboole full to the brims, the group matches have not been creating the kind of enthusiasm they do these days. Towns hosting these group matches come to a standstill as huge crowds turn up to watch the match. Supporters raise money to push their teams to the grand finale at Namboole or wherever it is organised.
It is interesting that a local competition is starting to attract the kind of attention that was largely reserved for the English Premier League and the Spanish Laliga. And people are willing to board the taxis, pay entrance fee, and support their teams.
What has Buganda done of recently to create this kind of interest in its premier competition? Unlike its Bika (clans) soccer competition, Masaza Cup is open to everyone who resides or pays allegiance to the Ssaza. It is therefore not uncommon to find Peter Okello playing for Buddu or Butambala. Counties with money even pay sign on fees once they see a player of interest playing for their rivals — akin to what happens in the professional leagues. One doesn’t have to be a Muganda to play in the competition.
That decision is unifying and plays into the cosmopolitanism of Buganda, a polity that is for all.
But that alone wouldn’t probably have made the Masaza Cup endearing to many especially at the group stages. About two years ago, the kingdom started the Ggombolola tournaments where sub counties compete against each other. Those matches are increasingly becoming popular. They feed the main Masaza Cup with players while creating soccer structures at the grassroots. To attract more people, they have added wrestling (ekigwo) and netball, thereby creating a mini sports extravaganza at the sub county level.
That kind of mobilization is also seen in growing coffee in Buganda as well as in the support the kingdom receives from its ordinary people. You can’t go catch a game when you don’t earn anything. So young people are inspired to work to better their lives.
There is a lot soccer teams and indeed the soccer federation could learn. Grassroots football creates enthusiasm yet our premier league clubs now are largely owned by corporate entities without bases. Where does Maroons for example, owned by the Uganda Prisons, get its base? From prisoners? Nobody allows them to traverse the country to watch their team. SC Villa or Express, where are their bases? The Masaza Cup may be a model they could study.
The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com
