By James Robert Kayindi
As the football fraternity across the country eagerly waits for the return of the FUFA Azam Uganda Premier League, 10 clubs from the top flight are threatening to boycott the league kickoff.
According to the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) calendar, the league is scheduled to kick off on 21st August, 2015, a week after the Super Cup game between the league defending champions Vipers and SC Villa, the winners of the 2015 Uganda Cup.
The calendar also highlighted that the FUFA general assembly commonly known as the ‘August House’ will be held on the 26th September, 2015 in Soroti.
In coming reports indicate that, Uganda Premier league clubs held at meeting that was attended by only ten clubs out of the 16 teams that play in the top flight. SC Villa, KCC FC among others didn’t attend the meeting.
Among the issues discussed was FUFA’s decision to create a new account to which the league sponsorship funds from Azam will be wired to. The account has two signatories namely; FUFA CEO, Edgar Watson and league’s Chief Administrative officer Bernard Bainamani who reports directly to Edgar.
The ten clubs demand that the league be run by FUFA Super League (FSL) Limited whose authority had been withdrawn by the local football governing body (FUFA) due to financial irregularities and incompetence especially regarding the money meant for referees (only $30,000 was paid out of the agreed $60,000).
The clubs also demand that the league should kick off after the sitting of the FUFA general assembly since they have pending issues that the assembly needs to decide on first if the league is to be run smoothly.
This comes after the clubs fronted Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to table a motion to the FUFA general assembly requesting that the assembly gives back the mandate of running the league to FSL.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Richard Omongole, the FSL secretary and lawyer officially communicated to the FUFA CEO, Edgar Watson and Azam informing them that clubs are not ready to play the league if Azam decides to wire sponsorship money on FUFA accounts.
FUFA is yet to respond to any of these threats.
However, it should be noted that the football constitution allows the league to start as long as there is at least six teams ready to participate in the league.
Email Robert: Robert.k.circles@gmail.com