FUFA on collision course with NCS over sports budget

Aug 08, 2020

The federation has already submitted its own proposals on the matter

The new funding policy if put into consideration is likely to create a misunderstanding between the National Council of Sports (NCS) and FUFA. 

According to research made by the presidential adviser on sports Karl Gunter Lange between 2017 and 2020, a proposal was made for the Uganda Athletics Federation (UAF) to receive the biggest funding basing on their performance in the past

Out of the sh17b sports budget for this financial year, Gunter suggested that sh2.4b be allocated to UAF followed by FUFA at sh1.9b while sh1.8b was to be allocated to the Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF) .

However, if this policy is passed there are chances that the sh10b that FUFA receives every financial year will be scrapped. FUFA officials argue that this policy was not suggested in good faith but rather to challenge the sh10b that the federation receives every year.

FUFA communications director Ahmed Hussein said the federation has already submitted its own proposals on the matter.

"Whatever is being done, they should put into consideration that sh10b was a directive from the President (Yoweri Museveni). As FUFA, we have already submitted our views about this and we know that the decisions taken will consider the origin of the sh10b. The good thing these are funding guidelines and there is no where its stated about equal distribution.

Through these guidelines, one was supposed to submit a work plan and also justify why they need a specific amount of money. Our biggest part of the money we receive is used during the AFCON and World Cup qualifiers plus also competing in the final tournament like AFCON," stated Hussein.

However, UBF president Moses Muhangi who has been at loggerhead with FUFA over funding is in support of the policy.

"Our problem is not about how much each federation gets but we want to have a funding policy. We want to have a criteria or principle a federation or association can follow to qualify for particular funding. The funding should not be based on lobbying but rather follow the right guidelines. If you have these criteria it makes it easy for one to distribute the funds without any disagreement from other federations," noted Muhangi.

This comes a few days after NCS chairman Donald Rukare revealed how they contacted different federations to give their views on the funding guidelines.

"We are in a process and procedure of how funds are distributed more so that all 51 sports disciplines are catered for well in the funding policy we are still accessing. We managed to give the federations funding guidelines to go through them and they managed to give us feedback. We want to make sure the system of allocation of funds is predictable and everyone knows about it," said Rukare.

''There are many proposals on this. For example, will the allocation be based on performance, global market, popularity, or world ranking? We are going to engage everyone so that we come out with something that is agreed on as a family and everyone is in support of it," he added.

 

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