I stand by what I said of USPA

Sep 22, 2003

THE appointment of a team which is, as pointed out by the Minister of State for Sports, Mr Henry Oryem Okello, made of “men of integrity”, to probe the current situation in Uganda’s soccer is good news.

The Other SIDE OF THE COIN

With Paul Waibale Senior

THE appointment of a team which is, as pointed out by the Minister of State for Sports, Mr Henry Oryem Okello, made of “men of integrity”, to probe the current situation in Uganda’s soccer is good news. My article, in which I opposed USPA's blackout, I categorically stated that such a probe committee should be set up. But I still hold that the primary duty of disentangling the confusion that surrounded the SC Villa vs Akol FC league game lay squarely on the shoulders of the National Football League Committee. I still hold that the task set for the newly appointed committee is separate from the duties entrusted to the National Football League Committee, which included their probe into various aspects of the Villa-Akol encounter and the production of recommendations thereto.

Now that the committee has started to work, men like Sunday Vision’s columnist Aldrine Nsubuga have to step forward and provide the committee with eloquent testimony regarding the manner, form and extent of mismanagement in Uganda's soccer. It is a pity if Nsubuga nurses the conviction that all one has to do to salvage Uganda's soccer is to call Waibale Senior names and amass all sorts of insults on him.

I am amused by the fact that after promising a “resounding rebuttal” of what he labelled “irresponsible comments” in my article, he ended up with a childishly naïve attempt to paint me as a non-starter in the field of soccer analysis. Nor am I surprised that he prefaced that promise with a self-righteous jibe that it would be “unlike me to let my remarks pass without the rebuttal” which in the end he never even attempted to make.

Evidently, Nsubuga’s inflated ego deceives him that acting like him generates any worthwhile respectability to the credit account of any commentator worth his salt. Although such contention hangs at the height of folly, it does not amaze me. After all, what better contribution can one expect from a novice in journalistic artistry, who is merely struggling to break loose from the distressed assortment of disgruntled unknowns. One way of dealing with such empty rhetoric is to ignore it with the contempt it deserves, but Nsubuga's utter ignorance of the basic norms dictated by journalistic etiquette inspires me to drop a few hints for him.

First, there is the cardinal debating rule that men with great minds discuss ideas, while those with small minds discuss personalities. By labouring in a whole column to discuss the personality of somebody called Paul Waibale Snr and hardly tackling any of the issues Waibale propounded, Nsubuga demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that he is firmly planted in the latter category. I do not envy him for that distinction. After pointing out that I was at one time USPA chairman, which seems to be the only thing he knows about my career in sports and journalism, Nsubuga strives to disqualify me from the category of those knowledgeable enough to express views on soccer administration. It is because he knows so little of what some of us have gone through that he considers it safe for him to masquerade as an expert in both soccer administration and sports journalism — two fields in which I can swear he is merely an Alice in Wonderland.

If I may call a spade a spade, I am ten times more knowledgeable in soccer affairs and journalistic practice than Aldrine Nsubuga. What has Nsubuga contributed to Uganda soccer, apart from now and then sneaking in and out of the KCC Football Club executive? Let me volunteer some information for Nsubuga's education. I am a qualified referee, trained, tested, and past by late Polycarp Kakooza who was then, in l963, the solitary FIFA authorised referees instructor in Uganda. I believe my mud-slinging friend, Nsubuga, was then still wetting his nappies. In l963-65, I was Secretary of both Busoga FA and the Eastern Region FA. I was manager of the Eastern Region team, which won the Aspro Cup in Gulu. That team included who were subsquently summoned to the Cranes outfit, such as the now famous soccer coach-cum-administrator “Big” Ben Omoding.

I am running out of space, but Nsubuga will benefit with little further information about the man whose image he is disparately attempting to disfigure. Apart from being at one time chairman of USPA, I am one of the dozen or so founding members of that association, and I am now one of the only three life members of USPA still alive. Let Nsubuga check his records and he will find that I am the only journalist in the country who has ever been chairman of all the three major journalists' bodies, namely, UJA, USPA, and UNEPA.

In soccer, I helped in the establishment of a “Bible” for the game in Uganda. along with Bidandi Ssali “Mister” and the KCC “life chairman”, the late Jack Ibale. We launched the exclusively soccer magazine known as Soccer World, of which I was editor-in-chief for 10 years. I have also had the honour to edit several prestigious newspapers such as The Uganda Times, predecessor of The New Vision, the Weekly Topic, and the Sports Recorder.

In Nsubuga’s faulty reasoning, my support for FUFA is designed to protect the job of my son Paul Waibale Jnr as FUFA press officer. Let me remind him that when I fought tooth and nail to have Denis Obua elected for the first term, my son was not in FUFA. There was a lot of opposition from the press, but we in the Obua camp won. In respect of Obua’s election for his second term, the entire press, save for a solitary myself, was against him. But Obua won without the press and he is set to win a third term.

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