FUFA will need to attract more funding

Oct 30, 2013

DESPITE celebrating the four-year sh4.2b sponsorship deal with telecommunication company Airtel on Monday, FUFA will still need to lure more sponsors

By Michael Nsubuga

DESPITE celebrating the four-year sh4.2b sponsorship deal with telecommunication company Airtel on Monday, FUFA will still need to lure more sponsors to adequately finance their annual activities.

A breakdown of the sponsorship indicates that sh3.8b will be injected into the Cranes while sh400m will finance the FUFA Big League (FBL) and the Uganda Cup.

However, although modalities of how the sponsorship will be spread out between the two competitions is still being processed, New Vision has established that the two competitions will share sh50m each per annum for four years.

But that is not sufficient for the 20 teams competing in the lower tier league as each team qualifies for sh2.5m a year.

The good news though, according to FUFA vice president (League football) Mujib Kasule, is that the offer will at least resolve transport costs that is still the biggest challenge for teams travel. 

“Many teams have failed to travel to honor their matches yet they are also supposed to pay the match officials, and their players. So may be this sponsorship can help them and the organizers to solve some of these problems,” Kasule said.

Water FC and Kigezi Good Samaritan FC have since pulled out of the league partly because of financial difficulties.

FUFA competitions committee secretary Decolas Kiiza hinted that there were efforts to bring on board title sponsors for the respective competitions — the FBL and the Uganda Cup.

The FUFA Big League is made of the Elgon and Rwenzori groups each comprising of twelve teams each while over 30 teams compete in the knock-out Uganda Cup.

How about the Cranes

If we are to rely on one of the expenditures sent out by FUFA two months ago highlighting FUFA’s expenditures on the Uganda-Angola game on June 15, as a case study, FUFA will still need extra support from Government to meet the national side’s expenditures.

The expenditure indicates that FUFA spent approximately sh500m on the home game which is half of the sh1b that Airtel are investing annually in the team. It implies most of the team’s foreign travel and allowances cannot be financed from Airtel’s sponsorship.

Before the sponsorship details are released, there still remains the reportedly $10,000 (sh25m) a month wage bill for Micho Sredojevich.

Cranes upcoming 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers will be played simultaneously in August, September and October next year.

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