President’s cheeky criticism of sports is 100% true 

One of the salient take-awaysfrom President Museveni’s end-of-year speech was the brash manner in which he derided sports.

“You cannot be doing sports and say you are working; that is playing,” he said.

He went on to explain why sports are nothing more than a form of entertainment for the fans. In fact, he urged Ugandans to move away from ‘playing’ and get to real industry work. The president’s view could easily be taken for banter or simply cynicism given the way he lightheartedly expressed it, but a deeper look at the sports sector, especially football, fully justifies his statement.

He noted, for example, that sports fans who spend hours watching games waste valuable productive time that they could be using to tend to their gardens. He also correctly stated that only a small percentage of athletes earn a living from sports.

He summed it up by saying that sports as an entity has no return on investment from government commitments and funding. This, unfortunately, is the sad reality in Uganda, especially when it comes to football.

The football governing body, Fufa, is a perennial beggar from the government and enjoys the lion’s share of the sports budget, but it has nothing tangible to show for government funds. This is so because Fufa doesn’t run sports as an investment but rather as a pastime.

THE ROT

Just last year, the government sunk Shs 17 billion into football to supplement the more than Shs 40 billion Fufa gets from sponsors and Fifa, but apart from expanding the wage bill to accommodate hungry critics, Fufa has nothing to show for it on the ground.

In fact, Fufa is using the government to cover its financial obligations to both Caf and Fifa. Imagine this: back in the day, Fufa used to levy a fee to Caf and Fifa for every league and continental game played in Uganda. Supporters used to fill stadiums, and URA also used to deduct its VAT.

What this meant is that Fufa would do everything in its power to promote the domestic league in order to get enough money.

But over the past decade, Fufa has done the opposite due to the dwindling gate collections from matches. To cover up the embarrassment, Fufa relinquished its duty to levy the fees and instead now uses the government’s financial support to cover the fees owed to Caf and Fifa.

In essence, the Fufa obligation to Caf and Fifa is paid for by government funding, which has no return on investment. In the process, Fufa has mastered the art of intimidating government through blackmail to lobby for funds. That’s why football has lost it because Fufa have become beggars with nothing to offer in return.

WAY FORWARD

There are three key sources of revenue for a financially viable football entity: broadcasting, merchandising, and gate collections. Broadcasting is the most profitable industry on the planet.

Unfortunately, all these aspects are controlled by Fufa, which determines what clubs earn in sponsorship, broadcast, and the scheduling of league games. With the recent launch of Fufa TV, Moses Magogo and company aim to cripple clubs into submission in order to toe Fufa’s line. Matters are not helped by the fact Fufa gets 10 per cent of the Uganda Premier League’s (UPL) sponsorship money.

In a nutshell, what we have in Uganda is a parasitic entity that forces itself onto clubs in order to squeeze every financial benefit from the game. What Fufa forgets is that the UPL has long lost the faith of the fans, and you cannot get revenue from broadcasting when there are no fans in the stadium. It ia trickle-down effect. You just cannot market something on TV when there are no fans watching.

What we need is a top-flight league that operates with a capitalistic approach where a club’s financial fortunes and successes mainly depend on the clubs’ ability. On the contrary, what we have in Uganda is a league that functions in a socialistic way, where Fufa takes care of the UPL.

I have no doubt that allowing the clubs to decide their fate provides them with the sort of independence needed to grow the game in all parts of the country, thereby increasing the needed talent pool.

So, Fufa’s top-to-bottom approach has not only alienated casual fans from the game but also ensured that only a handful of stakeholders benefit from the game at the expense of the majority. In light of President Museveni’s assessment of sports, he couldn’t have been any more right to view the current status of football as one of mere playing and not investment.