Njeru shouldn''t be White Elephant -Mamelodi

By Swalley Kenyi

WORLD football governing body FIFA development officer in charge of Eastern and Southern Africa Ashford Mamelodi has advised FUFA to ensure that all the national teams trainning be permanently shifted to the centre.

He said that with the Technical Centre and synthetic ground at the same place in Njeru FUFA has no excuses but to take football to another level.

He was on the last tour of the centre built under FIFA goal projects two and three alongside a ‘Win in Africa with Africa’ project for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The centre is due to inaugurated next month.

Mamelodi noted that if well used, the centre would go a long way to allow FUFA set up proper structures to propel Uganda to the Africa Nations Cup and World Cup in the near future.

“This must be a nerve centre of football development in the country. With facilities like this, FUFA has no excuse but to have a solid technical structure and the sky will be the limit. I felt for Uganda when they narrowly missed the Nations Cup but with a centre like this the sky will be the limit,” Mamelodi warned.

FUFA chief executive Edgar Watson said that effective next year their technical director’s office will shift to Njeru where it will be expected to set up training programmes for various stakeholders and youth teams development.

Mamelodi said that approval of the fourth FIFA Goal Project for Uganda will depend on how well Federation of Uganda Football Federation (FUFA) utilises its multimillion shilling technical Centre in Njeru.

Mamelodi said yesterday that although he was happy with completion of the centre, he feared it being under utilised.

When Mamelodi visited the Njeru last year, he was very infuriated with FUFA and the contractors whose construction work was very slow and consequently asked FUFA to identify new people to work with.

“It is not easy for FIFA to appreciate but I’m very satisfied with this phase now. We want to see a lot of activities here. We don’t want it (Technical Centre) to be a White Elephant,” Mamelodi told a press conference held in Njeru yesterday.

Asked about another FIFA development offer under the Goal Project (Fourth) Mamelodi said that how well the technical centre in Njeru is used for football development in the country.

He advised that when the project is granted, FUFA should use it for another technical centre outside Kampala and Jinja. FUFA had already hinted that they would use the $500000 (sh1.2b) to establish a FUFA media house or build football grounds.