Table tennis eyes return to action

Aug 05, 2020

Just like other sports federations, UTTA has been heavily affected by this crisis

The Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA) president Robert Jjagwe is optimistic that local competitions that were supposed to be played in the last five months will be rescheduled for this year if sports is given the green light to resume.

The sports activities that were suspended by President Yoweri Museveni in March due to coronavirus pandemic will only resume after government clearance.

"We are confident that if we resume sports in time we can be able to play the local competitions apart from the National Schools Championship. This competition was supposed to gather children from different schools and it is not possible to organise because even the schools are closed," stated Jjagwe.

The National Ranking Championship is one of the competitions that players are likely to compete in if the sports returns.

Uganda was supposed to send a team to Ethiopia in March to take part in the East African Regional Championships that was postponed due to the pandemic.

The competition that was to bring together 14 countries was also a qualifier for the Africa Continental Championship.

Just like other sports federations, UTTA has been heavily affected by this crisis.

"We are financially constrained and we have requested the National Council of Sports for assistance. The other challenge we have is that our players in this period have not managed to get any help even in terms of food," Jjagwe said.

UTTA has also requested for different stakeholders for funding to help secure equipment held up by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) that was sent by the International Table Tennis Federation.

"We received a donation in terms of equipment from the International Table Tennis Federation but because of the countrywide lockdown, we could not get them. We don't know if URA will reduce the taxes as we have been in lockdown," Jjagwe said. 

He also revealed that UTTA has plans to start recording domestic matches that will later be shared with the public as a way of promoting the game.

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