It is the right time to build
Aug 06, 2019
World-class arena images of the brand new Kigali Arena, a world-class 10,000 seater that could catapult indoor sports in Rwanda into space, hit the social media like a tsunami two week.
Sports enthusiasts would have cheered First Lady and Minister for Education and Sports Janet Museveni's move to revive the Namboole phase two sports project.
In an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by the First Lady two weeks ago, it was concluded that the first step will be to move encroachers off the land in and around Namboole Stadium, a tricky job but one Mrs. Museveni has the will to see through.
It then emerged that a semblance of work has resumed on the Makerere netball arena, which has been shut since last year's World University Championships.
All that was missing to complete a run of refreshing sports news was a positive progress report on the national high-performance centre in Teryet, which whenever completed could be a total game-changer for the national sport.
In other words, these are the kind of infrastructural developments necessary for Ugandan sport to take the leap from amateur to professional status.
The kind of developments that are not happening fast enough, if the nearest competition is anything to go by.
World-class arena images of the brand new Kigali Arena, a world-class 10,000 seater that could catapult indoor sports in Rwanda into space, hit the social media like a tsunami two weeks ago and for most Ugandans the obvious reaction was awe. Rather, um, jealousy.
Construction of the Arena commenced in January 2019 and it cost Rwanda a reported $2.1m. Both facts sound too good to be true especially when you imagine how much / long it would take to complete a similar project in Kampala.
But then efficiency is not exactly Uganda's specialty, as proven by the Makerere netball Arena, which initially cost $1.5m but could end up equaling or surpassing what
was spent on the Kigali Arena.
Rwanda is desperate to have a representative in the Basketball Africa League (BAL), an extension of America's NBA, which is scheduled to start next year.
Twelve teams are planned for the inaugural season and one of the conditions of admission is to have a standard basketball arena.
Safe to say that will not be a problem for Rwanda, whose president Paul Kagame has close working relations with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and invited Toronto Raptors GM Masai Ujiri to witness the completion of the Kigali Arena last week.
The Arena hosted the just-concluded FIBA U-16 Africa Women's basketball championship and will be the venue for the FIBA Zone V Clubs Championships in October.
It is not only Rwanda who have stepped up their game.
Kenya, having watched Uganda and Rwanda dominate East African basketball for the last five years have just clinched silver at the inaugural FIBA Afro Can Championships in Mali.
That success will only inspire Kenya to continue cleaning up their previously messy basketball federation, which is also sending a representative to the BAL.
It all adds up to a scenario that demands a quick response from Uganda, both in terms of player and infrastructure development.
The stakes have never been higher.