Rebuilding The Cranes team needs radical steps 

At the time of writing this, The Cranes were due to play Tanzania in a must-win Afcon qualifier in Dar es Salaam (Editor’s note: Cranes won the return leg 1-0).

Regardless of the result, going by our performances in recent years, you will agree with me that the national team needs a complete overhaul.

Oftentimes, such overhauls are mostly limited to a change of guard in the squad, with the coaching staff and players being shuffled around.

At the moment, coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic’s head is on the chopping block while a number of senior players may have won their last caps. But looking at the bigger picture, the national team’s struggles stem from the foundation and system in which players grow with.

The current system is a murky one where player agents have a lot of influence to determine who is called up to the team and who will feature.

So, it is my prayer that we should get rid of these agents influencing Cranes team selections. Of late, it has become a common occurrence on the national team for player agents to pressure the national team coach to select their players, even when they were not performing well.

This pressure from the agents has often led to the selection of players who are not good enough, which has contributed to the team’s recent poor performances. By banning player agents from being part of the national team contingents, the coach can be free to select players based on merit and performance.

Following the recent Egyptian debacle in which we lost 0-1 to Tanzania, a reputable Fufa official intimated to me that Micho plays to the tunes of player agent Eugene Sseppuuya and Moses Magogo’s right-hand henchman Shawn Mubiru, who pressure him to select particular players under their wing.

How do you expect to improve the national team with such influence-peddling and infiltration?

Meanwhile, it is high time we seriously spread the game nationwide. In the current Uganda Premier League (UPL), almost 90 per cent of matches are played in Greater Kampala. This cannot unearth talents from upcountry.

That is why I believe that spreading out top-flight football by creating four competitive regions would not only create more competition, but it would also reduce the financial burden on clubs in terms of transportation and logistics.

The top two teams from each region would then player a two-legged knockout tournament to determine the winner. Already, Joel Aita is doing a great job with the Arua Hill stadium but it will become a white elephant if not well utilized with regular top-level matches like it is the case at the moment.

This may seem far-fetched but I have no doubt it would create regional derbies that may in turn attract more fans to create vibrancy. That way, we would also produce real players that could challenge for the national team slots.

The author is SC Villa first vice president in charge of mobilization