By Robert Kayindi James
It is barely a year after three time league top scorer Robert Ssentongo renewed his contract with four time league champions, Uganda Revenue Authority Football Club (URA FC) but he could soon be on his exit from the club. This comes after the striker and his manager Kefa Kisala, who also doubles as the Uganda National Under-20 team (the Hippos) head coach, have failed to see eye to eye on a number of issues.
The current Azam Uganda Premier League (AUPL) top scorer with a tally of 15 goals has made the war between him and his boss public when he posted about their feud on his Facebook wall over the weekend. “I know you hate me but even if I don’t play again in the remaining two games, I will still be the top scorer and it will hurt,” the striker posted.
Kisala has suspended the striker on numerous occasions since replacing Moses Basena (The Saints FC head coach and Cranes assistant coach) as the Tax Collectors’ head tactician in November last year.
It’s public knowledge that Ssentongo is a party animal and an alcoholic who keeps on missing training sessions and for similar reasons, he was indefinitely suspended from the national team by coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic last year during the CHAN qualifiers.
It is this kind of character that his boss has failed to live with claiming that the player is a bad influence to the rest of the players on the team. Apparently, he (Ssentongo) thinks that he is irreplaceable but his boss thinks otherwise.
“Uganda has over a million footballers who can do better than Ssentongo. He absconds from training, negatively influences other players and he thinks he is a demigod at the club. I will not tolerate this at all and he can only stay at the club over my dead body,” Kisala recently told a local newspaper, the Daily Monitor.
Kisala will now have to place his trust in other strikers like Frank Kalanda, Villa Oromchan, Ali Feni, Peter Lwasa and Ronald Kigongo in their remaining two league games as Ssentongo continues to serve his suspension for the rest of the season.
According to the same newspaper, “insiders at the club intimated that the tax collectors are planning a complete overhaul next month that will see the likes of Ssentongo, Saidi Kyeyune, Sulait Luyima, Villa Oromchan, Simeon Masaba and Yayo Lutimba depart as they aim to rebuild a competent side.”
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