The FUFA president, Moses Magogo has defended the association regarding the lack of sports infrastructure in the country.
According to Magogo, the federation can only raise awareness about the poor state of stadiums like any other Ugandan.
“All over the world, FAs do not own football stadiums. Many have said we should become the first, but building a football stadium is so costly. Building a stadium is not building a toilet,” said Magogo while appearing on FUFA TV.
Meanwhile, for starters, some associations own stadiums, like Wembley National Stadium Limited, the company that operates Wembley Stadium, which is a fully owned subsidiary of the FA (the football association of England).
Nonetheless, according to Magogo, they can not solve the infrastructure question at the top of the football pyramid.
“It will do us no good to improve stadiums in the top tier while neglecting the Big League, Regional League, and other leagues,” Magogo said.
He also defended the government, saying, “We can not say that the government has done nothing for sports. The government increased funding for sports, and we all witnessed the positive impact of that across all sports disciplines.”
Last year, the government increased the sports budget from Shs17 billion to Shs47 billion however in this financial year, there are massive cuts to the sports budget.
Also, Uganda currently has no stadium to host the forthcoming AFCON qualifiers that start in March after St Mary’s Kitende failed to pass the minimum CAF requirements to host international games. Uganda will have to host games abroad.
The alleged reason why St Mary’s Stadium was denied approval was that it lacks enough access roads.
Last year, the government officially handed over the renovation duties of Namboole Stadium to the UPDF Engineering Brigade. But, it’s not yet specified when the renovations will be completed.
