Here’s how violence in sports can be stopped 

Three days ago we witnessed a very unfortunate incident in which a one Fahad Sekayiba, a referee, got beaten up very badly after a game between Express FC and UPDF FC.

The referee was accused of wrong (biased) decisions that led to Express failing to win the game as it ended in a one-all draw. The Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) has stated firmly that it is going to hunt down the culprits and bring them to justice, especially using the new Sports Act.

Section 64 of this Act provides for a penalty of Shs 9.6 million or imprisonment not exceeding 10 years or both and it allows the court to award damages or compensation to the injured victim. I totally agree with Fufa on this because if left unpunished, the perpetrators might continue after seeing no consequences.

Secondly, no one should turn sports into a do-or-die affair to the extent of threatening the life of another. Sports cannot be equated to a war zone. However beyond the punishments and deterrents for hooliganism, we all need to examine what is causing this in football and not in other sports of Uganda.

Football has of course had a history of violence world over and even here in Uganda. Nonetheless, we still need to look at the prevalent and current factors at play. I can think of no other factors beyond sports betting, the excessive amounts of money now going into football and then the lack of transparent, verifiable refereeing.

Football now has a lot of money that many want to win. Therefore, they invest heavily in the football teams to achieve this. Then there are those who bet lots of their hard-earned money on football games. When a wrong and biased refereeing leads to the loss of these money-making opportunities, surely anger is going to set in.

More money in football is just a secondary problem and this is why I want to deal with the actual problem which is the poor refereeing. With the poverty levels in Uganda today, you cannot tell who exactly is betting on these games whether directly or indirectly from the fans, players, coaches, administrators to the referees themselves.

The new Sports Act will do little to deal with this problem. One of the best ways to stop unfair refereeing is to embrace cheat-proof playing formats, videography as well as using referees that are well trained, trustworthy and agreeable to both opponents before the game.

In the past, we also had some serious problems of favoritism in table tennis when it came to national team selection whenever a major international competition such as Commonwealth Games and All Africa Games was around the corner. Players and their coaches or sponsors would do anything to qualify to enjoy those trips along with the nice allowances that came with the min millions of shillings.

I actually won the election to become UTTA president on the promise to stamp out this unfairness in team selection. Unfair team selection in table tennis is the exact equivalent of unfair determination of the outcome of a game like we are currently seeing in football.

In table tennis, the cheaters were using a system of awarding points unfairly. Within two weeks after my election as UTTA president, together with my team,we abolished the points system and replaced it with a round-robin playing system.

This created our very first enemies and wars in table tennis because some former top players with lots of points went up in arms questioning why we had removed the points qualification system. Some of these had been key beneficiaries of unfair selections which had then chased away many of the other cheated and disenfranchised players from the sport.

After abolishing the points system, we went ahead and put video coverage in many of the key qualification games. Then we sat back and waited for the cheaters to cheat again and we see how they would get away with it. These measures completely stopped that bad manners of cheating for undeserving winners.

I, therefore, encourage our sports sector to embrace videography because anyway, also, it can help us with better marketing of sports to our fellow citizens and to sponsorship partners. For the more tricky games like football, the combination of cheat-proof playing formats, videography as well as neutral and mutually agreeable referees will go some good way of calming down losers.

Ugandan football needs to embrace Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology. I am sure with all the money they have at their disposal, they can afford this for all critical games on which there is huge prize money and on which Ugandans place bets.

I advise them to try and make it affordable if it is to be rolled out to all critical games as these are many meaning the cost of video coverage for all games can be quite enormous.

The writer is president of Uganda Table Tennis Association and secretary general of the Union of Uganda Sports Federations and Associations.