Rugby rocked by dodgy officiating 

There will be no Nile Special Premier League action this Easter weekend.

Action returns on April 15. By then, it is hoped that the controversy that is gripping the sport currently, following the Heathens and Kobs league game last weekend will have subsided.

The game, which Heathens won 19-12, has been a major talking point around rugby circles, following the controversial manner in which it ended. While locked at 12 points apiece, deep in added time, the game seemed destined for a draw.

That was until referee Ronald Wutimba awarded the hosts a penalty, which would have decided the game. In turn, the Kobs players protested the decision and refused to continue with play. This led to the referee awarding the Heathens a penalty try, which carries seven points, before he blew the final whistle.

Referee Wutimba’s decision left so many talking. But even more significantly, it has placed the sport in a spot of bother. Firstly, the decision made by Wutimba to award the Heathens a penalty try is not in the rules. In fact, the Uganda Rugby Union (URU) has been compelled to seek advice from World Rugby and Rugby Afrique.

According to the rules, a penalty try is only awarded in a situation where a defending player stops an offensive player illegally, say, through a neck tackle, when they were bound to score a try. Stone Luggya, the chairman of Kobs, said that it was clear the referee used emotion after the players challenged his decision to award Heathens a controversial penalty.

But he did not apply the rules as they are. On the other hand, Godwin Kayangwe, the URU president, was non-committal about Luggya’s view.

Kayangwe said, “We are waiting for World Rugby’s response on the matter.”

By press time, URU had yet to receive World Rugby’s response. But this has not subsided the bad feelings towards Wutimba, who, incidentally, was the 2022 referee of the year. Critics who watched the game last weekend feel that it is either incompetence or outright bias.

The latter has been the greater argument, with critics saying that Wutimba has been nurtured at Kyadondo, the umbrella body under which Heathens, Buffaloes, and the Thunderbird women’s team are. In response, Kayangwe said that Wutimba is one of the top three referees in Uganda.

And for a high-level game like the one last weekend, those three referees are considered. However, those three top referees, including Saudah Adiru and Rosenberg Kanyunyuzi, are all from Kyadondo.

But Ramsey Olinga, the chief technical officer of URU, said there was nothing wrong with that because the union does not profile people based on where they come from, provided they are competent and do a professional job.

Kayangwe added that referee training programs are open to all. And one thing Kyadondo has done over the years is be vigilant in capacity building. Essentially, no one has stopped Kobs from bringing forth people at the same level. But Kayangwe emphasized that referees do not emerge from any stable, be it Kyadondo or Legends, to favour anyone.

Notably, these referees go a long way in being part of teams’ training sessions to guide them on the rules of the game. Some people have argued that such high-profile games should be officiated by foreign referees from Kenya or Zimbabwe. But Kayangwe said that the URU has been criticized before for this on the grounds that they are not building capacity in Uganda.

That said, Luggya stressed that for many years, they have complained about referees, yet URU just sits on their letters and never responds. Olinga accepted blame for that and promised to improve.

That said, it is not the first time Kobs have been involved in such a skirmish. Ten years ago, their coach Fred Mudoola and players Steven Ogute and Victor Wadia were banned for three years after they attacked referee Collins Mulindwa, famously known as comedian Kerekere.

Kobs have been accused of feeling entitled and bringing the game into dis- repute with those on-field skirmishes. Luggya dismissed that, arguing that whenever there is no quality control on the standards, sometimes things fall apart.

The fact that some Kobs fans stormed the field has also left many wondering about the security measures put in place by URU. There may never be a bigger watershed moment for Ugandan rugby to iron out the problems the sport is grappling with.

jovi@observer.ug