Hypocrisy of football leaders breeding a dictatorship

Immanuel Ben Misagga

I belong to numerous football WhatsApp forums, including that of club owners, administrators, sponsors and also players.

What I find compelling is that in all these groups, there is a limitation on freedom of speech on football matters.
This is more so when I question the level of leadership. Oftentimes, members resort to sending me private messages for fear they are spies in the group.

I always wonder; how did we get sink to this abyss?

For instance, players that participate in the Cranes Na Mutima regional campaigns have not been paid a coin but always plead with me not to mention their names lest they miss out on being summoned again to the national team.

Even some club leaders, who urgently need to clean their house, prefer to show their discontent through private messages. 

As for some sponsors, they privately share grievances of Fufa’s corruption and arm-twisting tactics but instead ask me to spare their name in order maintain harmony! 

The list of Fufa crimes that people cannot mention in public is too long to mention here. But for the fear of reprisals or blackmail, institutions supposed to keep Fufa in check are coiling.

In other words, being seen as a challenger to the Fufa policies is treasonous or sabotage.  That’s the fear Moses Magogo and his Fufa leadership has instilled so much fear in all football institutions that the mere mention of aspiring to unseat him makes you an enemy. 

This fear is a well-orchestrated plan to remove all football powerbases and have the Fufa executive as the sole controller of the game. That’s why Fufa made itself a member of UPL with veto powers; that’s why controls all aspects of domestic leagues. And for your information, winning a title or getting relegated is also determined by a Fufa scheme that may involve referee selection, postponement of fixtures or even abandoning a game to punish a particular side. I will not even elaborate on the high wave of match-fixing engineered within Fufa, which up to this date has refused to release the Kidega match-fixing report.

So, with all that authority centralised at Fufa, it is understandable why many football stakeholders fear reprisals from Magogo and company. Unfortunately, what many don’t know is that this fear to question thing sis breeding a class of leaders in Fufa who see themselves as the owners of the game, with the rest mere participants. They will continue to act as dictators until everyone wakes up to the reality.
  
However, I’m happy to note that there are several bold faces coming up to challenge the status quo that has rendered many football-loving people powerless to even contribute their honest views. And, as the looming Fufa polls edge closer, I expect more to come up to save the game before it is too late. 

Already, Ali Sekatawa has shown he can lead from the front while Asaph Mwebaze has done a great job to articulate the dire state of football in the country. 

The countdown is on.

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