CAF Champions League: URA FC ready

CAF Champions League preliminary round
Cotton Sport v URA
Sunday: 3:30pm

By Swalley Kenyi

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Football Club coach Paul Nkata has vowed to battle Cameroon’s $1.5m (sh4b) Cotton Sport de Garoua side in the CAF Champions League match.

The teams will meet in a first leg preliminary round game in Garoua on Sunday.

Cotton Sport comprises nine professionals from Chad, Burkina Faso, Togo, CAR, Congo-Brazzaville and Niger. The side has 36 players that were signed for sh4b.

URA is made up of players management spent less than less sh50m to recruit.

But officials of the Kampala side the monetary disparity will not be an issue when the two teams meet in the continent’s premier clubs competition.

Nkata’s side has home based players. URA face a side soccer followers say has the upperhand to advance.

Nkata, who took over at the team about a month ago, said many of the players were yet to adjust to his training programme. But the coach believes they can pull off a decent result.

“I’m going to look for a draw of any margin,” Nkata said before the team left for Cameroon.

URA were due in the Cameroon capital Duala on Thursday and arrived in Garoua, the match venue, on Saturday.

Cotton Sport de Garoua were supposed to take charge of URA’s internal travel in Cameroon in line with regulations of the continent’s football body CAF.

But URA snubbed an ealier arrangement by Cotton Sport following an unpleasant experience in the past. The teams met in 2007 and after arriving in Cameroon, URA were kept waiting at the airport for several hours.

URA secretary Charles Mayeku said on Thursday, that “they (Cameroonians) had started shifting goalposts like they did before".

“We decided to make our own travel plans. We may even be forced to buy our own food to avoid mistreatment and excuses.”

On the pitch then, URA lost the first round match 3-0 away and settled for a goalless draw in the return leg in Kampala.