Mayanja wants local coach for Cranes job

By Swalley Kenyi

UGANDA Cranes former star Jackson Mayanja is advocating for local coaches to manage the team.

Mayanja has argued that the national football governing body FUFA should consider local tacticians for the task because the foreign managers, who are often more expensive than their counterparts have continually failed for years.

Responding to the recent exit of Uganda in quarterfinals of the CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup and Cranes coach Micho Sredojevic’s views of building a team for the future, Mayanja said that the team’s past achievements are being eroded.

“Time is up for foreign coaches (especially out of the continent) in Uganda. FUFA needs to give opportunity to local coaches to prove themselves,” Mayanja, who has acted as an assistant Cranes coach more than once, said.

“Ugandan coaches are regarded highly out of here but not in their own country,” he wondered.

Local tacticians plying their trade all over East Africa include Sam Timbe now at Sofapaka FC Kenya, Sam Ssimbwa (Police FC in Rwanda), Moses Basena (technical director Simba SC) and Mayanja himself at Kagera FC in Tanzania.

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Mayanja also served as Laszlo Csaba's assistant.

All the four have worked as Uganda Cranes assistant coaches to foreign tacticians and exited either willingly or following allegations of club sentiments in team or squad selection.

But Mayanja argued that assistants cannot be faulted for not achieving as assistants because they only acted with instructions from their bosses.

“I am not about names or colour of these people (coaches). The issue is they have not showed any change for years now. It is time to try local coaches. We have seen this in Ethiopia, Nigeria and other African countries,” Mayanja said as he vowed to mobilise his colleagues to get into FUFA’s ear.

For a while FUFA has insisted that foreign coaches are still the best for Uganda Cranes to avoid conflict of interest because local tacticians have always failed to distance from their club attachments.