Fans mourn as UBC fails to reach Mbale

Jun 12, 2006

SOCCER fans in Mbale and other parts of eastern Uganda are missing out on the World Cup because of 24-hour electricity load-shedding here.

By Joseph Wanzusi
in Mbale

SOCCER fans in Mbale and other parts of eastern Uganda are missing out on the World Cup because of 24-hour electricity load-shedding here.

Several fans had purchased small power generators to ensure that they follow the action on UBC TV from their homes after UBC acting managing director Edgar Tabaaro promised that the corporation was to install new generators at their transmitter sites countrywide by May 31.

Sources at Mbale UBC TV station located at Buwalasi said no new generator had been delivered from Kampala yet. The existing one could not produce enough power for the transmitter because of poor maintenance.

The situation has been made worse with the rampant vandalism of Umeme power conductors which has left several parts of Mbale town in a black-out.

With the unreliable UBC television signal in the area, some fans have either resorted to watching the soccer matches from drinking joints that have pay TV, MultiChoice.

- Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi hit out at world governing body FIFA for operating what he called a soccer “slave market” that deprived poor nations of talented players and fostered racism among supporters.

In a message on his personal website, Gaddafi said if FIFA could not run its operations in ways more favourable to the world’s poor, then it should be abolished.

“FIFA reactivated the system of slavery and enslavement and trading in human beings from Africa to Europe and America; and also from Latin America to Europe,” he said. “The children of the poor states became slaves of the rich ones.”

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