Isabirye departure highlights paradox facing Vipers 

There are few clubs in Uganda like Vipers Soccer Club. They own a good stadium called St Mary’s, have a rich owner in Dr Lawrence Mulindwa and have a feeder conveyor belt that is St Mary’s School Kitende.

Last season, they won their first-ever League and Cup double. It was also the season where they finally competed in the group stages of the Caf Champions League, a stage the club has cherished for so long. But while Vipers are, by any measure, one of the more stable clubs currently, the club has time and again been a beacon of uncertainty.

The resignation of coach Alex Isabirye, just a few months after he guided the club to the double, means the club is currently without a coach as they bid to return to continental football next year.

When Isabirye was hired, to replace Beto Bianchi who had presided over one of the most spells of any coach local or foreign in the history of Ugandan football, the feeling was that Mulindwa had shifted away from his renown aversion for home coaches to entrust the Venoms with a Ugandan who knew how to cajole his expensively as- sembled squad to play attractive football.

Vipers would go on to win the League, thanks largely to SC Villa’s inability to beat URA on the final day of the season. Shortly after the Venoms won the double for the first time and everything seemed rosy at Kitende. Except that Isabirye’s title-winning credentials didn’t quite rubber stamp his position as the man that Mulindwa felt would take Vipers to the more demanding stage that is Africa.

When news filtered through that Vipers were on the search for a more experienced, foreign coach to come and manage the club with Isabirye as his assistant, the former BUL FC gaffer took exception to the notion. Privately there were question marks as to whether he had been the mastermind of Vipers’ most unlikely of League and Cup doubles.

There was a view in the team’s hierarchy that the club won the two trophies despite, and not because of Isabirye.

When Isabirye quit, he left the club in a dilemma. Vipers are famed for many things but not job security of coaches. Mulindwa has never hidden his disdain for local coaches, but likewise he has routinely praised foreign coaches he hires at their unveiling only to get rid of them with contempt when they depart.

The Isabirye conundrum has no doubt put Vipers in a spot of bother.