UBA left a lot to be desired at the Uganda International

Uganda Badminton Association (UBA) CEO Simon Mugabi, who also doubles as the national coach, claims that the current political uncertainty affected their bid to attract sponsorship at the just concluded Uganda International Badminton Open.

But on a wider perspective, UBA still needs to streamline their operations especially when it comes to organising major events whose mobilisation efforts seem to be a ‘one man affair' all rotating around Mugabi.

"Sponsors had promised to partner with us but later the political situation forced most of them out. But there was no way we could reschedule the event having been listed among the Olympic qualifiers," Mugabi stated.

He explained that the situation could have led to the withdrawal of America's top player Howard Shu, ranked 65th in the world, and Hsu Jui Tang from Chinese Taipei.

Uganda's best male and female players Edwin Ekiring and Shamim Bangi were knocked out of the four-day event in the second round by India's Dey Subhankar and Ksenia Polikarpova from Russia, respectively.

Later Uganda's Herbert Ebayo and Jacob Musisi fell to Dinuka Karunaratha and Niluka Karunarathe in the doubles semifinal before a handful of supporters who were almost the same in number throughout the tournament.

This also portrayed poor marketing by UBA.

"Maybe the timing was not right because most of the badminton supporters are students and school had just resumed, so it was hard to
get the crowd," he said.

The closing ceremony was only honoured by UBA chairman Oscar Kambona, while none of his board members showed up. Mugabi insisted they were carrying out other association duties elsewhere.

"We worked as a team to organise this tournament but most of the committee members were on different official assignments. That is why they
couldn't make it here," said Mugabi.