Corporate governance holds the key to sustainable football success.

Governance is difficult to define but is easier to recognize in practice.

According to Investopedia, corporate governance is the structure of rules, practices, and processes used to direct and manage a company.

The purpose of corporate governance is to facilitate effective and prudent management that can deliver the long-term success of an organization.

If you asked any stakeholder within football in Uganda about the games’ biggest needs, 99% would give answers rotating around money in the form of funding from sponsors and the government.

To us, the success of football organizations starts with having money.

Every time that we need to solve a football-related problem, discussions rotate around acquiring money from sponsors yet, the lack of money or abundance of money on its own does not guarantee the failure or success of a football organization.

How many times has a new football club in Uganda started with a lot of public attention and funding only to fade and disappear without a trace? Countless times.

In 1992, a football club in Uganda sold a player directly to a football club in France for an estimated $180,000 yet 18 years later, the club doesn’t have a training ground, no website, and currently relies on cash handouts from well-wishers to survive.

That is a clear example that the lack of money is not a problem for football organizations in Uganda.

Football rotates around three arms of governance, sporting, and business.

Every activity that you observe within the game belongs to one of those three areas.

Of the three arms of football, governance is key to have good business and sporting activities of any football organization, without good governance, the business and sporting arms of any football organization would struggle to develop or wouldn’t be sustainable.

For any football organization to have sustainable success in the sporting and business arms of football, it needs to start with the practice of good governance.

The first step of good governance in football organizations is the separation of powers, responsibilities, and roles.

The owners or members of the football organization should appoint or vote the chairperson or president of the board/executive committee who will then appoint other members of the board/executive committee.

The board/executive committee appoints a CEO to head the day-to-day operations of the football organization.

The owners or members, board/executive committee, and management of the football organization should have powers, responsibilities, and roles that are documented and separate from each other.

Some of the simple governance checklist questions for the majority of football organizations in Uganda are;

Who are the owners?

Are board/executive committee members trained to perform board roles?

Does the football organization have documented policies, procedures, and a constitution?

Are decisions and policies quickly and effectively communicated?

Do all members of the football organization have documented role descriptions, clear objectives, and regular appraisals?

Do board members, management, and staff attend regular and collective training sessions to ensure individual and organizational development?

Are core competencies for each position documented and positions filled with competent individuals?

Football organizations in Uganda need to adopt the practice of good governance because it creates an environment of efficiency.

Although football operates in a different environment, football organizations in Uganda need to benchmark against some of the best performing corporate companies in Uganda because they have managed to show that corporate governance is indeed the foundation to successful sustainability.

The taxation dilemma of football in Uganda.

















Thank you for reading!

Managing Finances for Football in Uganda.

Football organizations need money to operate yet it’s a very scarce resource because of the tight competition involved in acquiring it.
To beat the tight competition, football organizations in Uganda must have good financial management practices.

Managing finances transparently, efficiently
and effectively is essential to ensure continued income and growth for any football organization.

Mentioning good financial management practices and the majority of Ugandans in the same sentence is almost equivalent to mentioning water and oil in the same space. The two hardly mix!

Financial literacy is supposed to be taught from the infancy stage using the same effort as reading, writing, etiquette, and all the other lessons that are taught in that period of human growth.

Unfortunately, the majority of Ugandans don’t undergo financial literacy that would enable us to practice good financial management. As we get older, we struggle to manage personal finances yet besides, we have football organizations to manage.

A friend of mine named Peter traveled with his family and in-laws to Kabale to celebrate Christmas. As the norm usually has it in most Ugandan cultures, his parents gave his niece 10,000 Uganda shillings as pocket money on the way back.

Along the way, the excited niece and the mother planned on how to use the money and settled for the idea of buying roasted chicken to enjoy the road trip.
They gladly requested Peter that should he come across a selling point for roasted chicken, he should stop so that they spend their money.

Concerned about their choice on how to spend the money, Peter asked the sister in law and niece whether eating chicken was their main need.

Of course, his question wasn’t treated in a good way but he exercised his authority to inform them that he wasn’t going to stop.

The above scenario of impulsive spending speaks to the majority of us Ugandans yet we are required to manage finances in the organizations that we serve.

Another misconception among we Ugandans, it that good financial management practices is a job for people employed in the finance department yet it’s every individual that is part of an organization.

In June 2020, the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) approved that $1.5 million will be sent out to each member association as COVID-19 relief aid.

Football clubs in Uganda are already demanding for the money to pay off salaries and in typical Ugandan financial management fashion, there are already articles published to show how the money should be spent.

The money is not meant to bail out only football clubs but the entire football family of FUFA’s 34 members.

I can understand that football clubs in Uganda have been badly affected by COVID-19 and need money to pay salaries but I am very sure the majority of football clubs have always had inconsistencies in paying salaries.

I am not sure about the instructions but, If I had to decide, I would ensure that $1.5 million is spent on activities that will lead to growing or attracting competent human capacity within football and infrastructure that would lead to sustainable income within football.

For example, there’s no club with a training ground worthy of a professional football club in Uganda.

How many football clubs in Uganda lack training facilities? How many football clubs spend money on renting or hiring poor training facilities?

If part of that money were to be used to construct modern football training facilities in some parts of the country, would clubs still have to rent or hire training facilities as a cost? Would owning training facilities enable clubs to make money in the long run?

We need to prioritize the training of good financial management practices within football in Uganda.

It’s never too late and, will save us the burden that comes with the ignorance of managing finances for football in Uganda.

Mutualized Services would Develop Football in Uganda.

Mutualized services in football are when two or more football clubs use the same service as a solution to solve a common problem.

The football clubs involved will put aside their rivalry to use a common service as a solution that would help them to grow.

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It’s believed that in the late 1990’s SC Villa, Express FC, and KCCA FC formed an association named V.E.K because they weren’t happy about the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) paying them less money from the Nile Breweries league sponsorship.

The three clubs approached Hedex for sponsorship and played a tournament in form of a super cup.

In that example, three clubs had a common problem of less income from sponsorship then united to attract a common sponsorship service as the solution.

Football in Uganda has very many problems. Clubs are faced with countless challenges that keep increasing every other year.

Some of the problems faced by clubs include; lack of training and match day facilities, lack of competent human personnel, and poor governance.

The majority of the problems faced by football clubs in Uganda, can’t be solved by each of the clubs on their own because the cost would be unaffordable.

KCCA FC’s 2018-2022 strategic plan shows that the club needs an estimated $2.5 million to construct a stadium at their current location in Lugogo but has so far got about $600,000 to start the first phase of stadium construction.

On having the funds available to start construction, KCCA FC’s chairman Martin Ssekajja was quoted by the press to have said that, “We would like to call upon sponsors, fans and KCCA FC well-wishers who can lend a helping hand to come through. We are going to create an app that everyone will use to donate their money for this project and we shall account for every penny.”

The entire process shows that KCCA FC is struggling to raise funds to construct a stadium that meets international standards.

KCCA FC can use mutualized services to partner with one of their rivals like SC Villa or Express FC to combine the efforts that would be required to raise the funds to construct a stadium and share the venue.

Mutualized services can be extended with negotiating for shirt sponsors, sleeve sponsors, stadium naming rights, and partners.

These would enable KCCA FC and the other club to earn more because they would be offering more in terms of numbers.

It might sound impossible because of the rivalry between KCCA FC and Express FC or SC Villa but rivalries like AC Milan and Inter Milan in Italy have used mutualized benefits to share a stadium, and are planning to construct a modern stadium very soon.

The other mutualized services idea that would benefit KCCA FC is the size of the land on which they are planning to construct a stadium.

Would KCCA FC get more if they partnered with the Kampala Rugby Club?

Do KCCA FC and Kampala Rugby Club have similar problems that can be solved with a similar solution?

Mutualized services should be the leverage used by clubs to grow themselves and develop football in Uganda.

NB: Good governance and strategic management need to be in practice if clubs are to get the best out of mutualized services.

Thank you for reading!

Stakeholders with A Genuine Passion for Football.

At the start of the COVID-19 induced lock-down, a video of Russian Olympic swimmer Yuliya Efimova practicing in a kitchen was circulated on social media.

Without a swimming pool, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games postponed and Russia banned at the Olympic games, she had a perfect excuse not to train but her passion for wanting to be a better swimmer kept her going.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, passion is a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something.

“Passion breeds innovation, and creativity.”

Innovation and creativity are needed to solve problems; something that pays a lot of money.

Take a look at the organizations that are either the most profitable or highly influential in any sector; they solve problems.

“Simplicity is genius.”

Football in Uganda has a lot of problems that players, coaches, referees, and administrators at clubs and associations have failed to solve over the years.

Failing to solve problems leads to football being either less profitable or lacking influence, something that reduces the involvement of the government, sponsors, fans, media, and providers.

With less involvement of external stakeholders, it becomes almost impossible to have the funding, law, infrastructure, and policies that are needed to take football to the level of becoming an economic activity that can have a massive contribution to Uganda’s economy.

Please click here to read: 
FUFA can't solve Uganda's 
football problems on it's own.

The majority of football stakeholders in Uganda claim to be passionate about football but confuse passion with the motivation for earning money at first sight.

The easiest way to find out whether an individual lacks passion is to place them in a problematic environment; do you get an excuse from them or a reason aimed at solving the problem?

Here is a scenario: In 2020, we still have football pitches that flood during the rainy season.

The reason is heavy rain makes the pitches to flood. The excuse is that it’s a rainy season.

An administrator with problem-solving skills would learn how to make pitches that have good drainage to enable the pitch to be used irrespective of the amount of rainfall.

Would that enable the pitch to generate more revenue?

Football was introduced in Uganda earlier than other sectors but hasn’t developed at the same rate.

In sectors like transport, banking, telecommunications, and fashion it’s possible and feasible to import and use the latest ideas that are a result of innovation and creativity of passionate people.

It’s possible to have a Mercedes Benz, iPhone, and a pair of damaged jeans in Uganda because those are tangible products solving your transport, communication, and dressing wants but the same can’t be said for football.

You don’t need to wait for a Ugandan made car, mobile phone, or clothing but if they existed, then home-made products in that sector would need to step up and match the quality to compete.

With a better football product being offered on pay-tv, Ugandan football can’t compete neither is it feasible to import better players, coaches, referees, and administrators.

That leaves us with no option but to be creative and innovative.

In other sectors, it’s also possible to copy hence no need to rely on innovation and creativity.

Copying might have an added cost but is still possible.

For instance; All banks seem to have SMS and E-mail notifications on account transactions but the idea must have originated from somewhere else.

In football, if you copy then chances are high that you will fail because many other conditions have to be met for the copied idea to succeed.

You can see this with the idea of how we copied the English Premier League’s model.

In less than two years, it was already a failed project because we didn’t have the competent personnel to make it work.

Ugandan football stakeholders are currently in a catch 22 situation of the money first option because we prefer instant gratification.

Football in Uganda needs internal stakeholders that see problems as an opportunity.

Not an opportunity for themselves but for the next generations to enjoy football in better conditions.

We need stakeholders with a genuine passion for football to solve Uganda’s football problems.

Thank you for reading!

Are you an internal football stakeholder?

Have you solved any football problem over the past three months?

Please use the #UGfootballitstartswithme hash tag on twitter to share your problem solving.