Ugandan football has been rocked by a wave of retirements. Hassan Wasswa, Dennis Onyango, and Mike Azira are out, and there is more to this expected over the next couple of weeks.

And because of this, academy football has never been more important in kick-starting the rebuilding process of the national team.

But how ready are our football academies countrywide in supporting this cause?

Uganda Youth Football Association (UYFA) chairman John Bosco Masiko believes football academies can play a significant role in the development of football in the country if they all work towards similar goals.

Speaking to New Vision on Saturday, Masiko noted that the importance of academies is clearly manifested in the current galaxy of Ugandan football stars and those playing for the Cranes, all of whom started and or developed through an ‘academy’.

“An academy is like a school where the young players nurture their skills as they grow, and when you look at most of the current top players, all have links with at least an academy, so these entities are helping a lot in the development of football in the country,” Masiko noted.

He gave an example of former KCCA FC player Mustafa Kizza currently with Montreal Impact in Canada who he worked with, in primary school and later in the Kampala Junior League (KJL) where he was later sported before he was signed by KCCA FC.

“We have about 100 academies registered with our association but there are so many others out there. What we all need to do now is to ‘unite’ so that all our work can be properly constituted and recognized by FUFA.”

He said for an academy to register they need to present several documents indicating location, LC1 letter, training venue among others in order to become a member and to apply for a FUFA license.

“All the players that feature in the U-15 Primary School Championship (Odilo) have a connection with at least an academy,” Masiko stated. He said that although most academies charge fees, their primary role remains to nurture talent.

In 2019 Uganda emerged champions of the inaugural Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (CECAFA) U15 Boys Challenge Cup after defeating Kenya 4-0 in the final.

The junior side that dominated the tournament had a good number of players in that squad selected directly from academies like Kampala Junior Team (KJT), Football for Good Academy, Sparta09, among others.

Even those picked from the different schools all had an association with at least an ‘academy’ before they were taken on a football scholarship.

Uganda's U-17 team also retained the CECAFA tournament to qualify for the Total U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, Morocco 2021, which was later cancelled due to the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic.

The team featured players like; Isma Isiko (Sunset Academy Mbale), Reagan Ssembusi (KJT), Christopher Nyongesa (True Vine Soccer Academy), with the rest from schools and the FUFA Junior League all having been snapped from the different academies in different regions of the country.

UYFA is a member association of FUFA responsible for registration and regulations of activities of football academies in accordance with its own statutes and FUFA statutes and relevant FUFA rules.

Because of their importance in nurturing talent, FUFA came up with licensing guidelines to ensure the proper running of these entities. Among the general provisions in running an academy If an entity engages in the training and developing and organizing competitions comprising of young players from a minimum age of 6 years to 18 years then it shall be required to obtain a FUFA Registered Football Academy  (FRFA) License to operate as an FRFA 3.

The academies are also useful in helping FUFA capture the proper bio-data inclusive of the age for the players at the right time and also, provide FUFA with records for player training compensation of all the academies the player went through from the age of 12 years as provided for in the FIFA and FUFA Regulations for the Status and Transfer of the Players.