Kudos FUBA for season climax

By Charles Mutebi

FUBA cannot have wished for a better climax to the 2011 basketball season.

You cannot do better than a Game 7 of playoff finals between the two teams that have provided local basketball’s most intense rivalry in last three seasons.

What’s more, a game that attracted a capacity crowd and then surpassed all expectations with a high-quality contest that went down to last possession before Power edged the Kyambogo Warriors 99-97 to win the 2011 men’s championship.

FUBA president Ambrose Tashobya spoke of the “great advert for the game” that was Friday’s contest, a noble admission seeing as he had just watched his team lose.

“You have to keep your eyes on the big picture,” Tashobya told me after the game. “It is painful to see my team lose but I am happy for the game. If one team had gone out and swept the other it would not have been very good.”

Tashobya is as honest a leader as you will ever find. He also has a genuine love for basketball, a fact that has drove him to put in more than he has taken out.

The Warriors patron has an audacious vision for the game but he has always run into tough realities on the ground.

The fact, though, remains that a lot is still needed from FUBA.

Tashobya revealed that FUBA have approached SuperSport over a potential deal to televise local league games, something that would be massive it were achieved.

But as basketball enters the off season, it is important that the platform is laid to address some of the other pending issues that are standing in the way of the game.