National Council of Sports (NCS) is still engulfed in confusion over which faction should legitimately administer football in Uganda.
NCS is still at sixes and sevens over the two worrying factions of Moses Magogo and Dan Walusimbi who both claim legitimacy over the right to run football in the country.
In a press briefing held on Tuesday at NCS headquarters in Lugogo, to give a progressive report in the implementation of the 2014 NCS statutory instrument that calls for registration of all sports associations, the issue over the local football governing body (FUFA) raised several concerns.
NCS chairman Bosco Onyik indicated that the current confusion in football is as a result of Magogo taking things for granted.
“All this confusion in football is as a result of FUFA-Magogo delay to apply for a certificate of incorporation as a trustee,” he said.
“This gave chance for Walusimbi to rush and get the certificate from Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development which is not our fault,” added Onyik.
However, Onyik indicated that at the moment, they have no football association they recognise and waiting for the judgement on the case in court between Walusimbi and Ministry of Lands.
Synopsis of the whole saga
In April 2014, government passed into law a statutory instrument, under the NCS Sports Act which called for re-registration of all sports associations.
The law was replacing the 1964 NCS Sports Act which was deemed obsolete in regards to modern sports and all sports disciplines were given six months.
However, the law required that all national sports associations register as trustees a thing which FUFA under Magogo desisted indicating it contradicts with world governing body FIFA.
The laws were immediately challenged in court by legal Brains Trust but following a period of vacation on the court injunction, National Council of Sports went ahead with the process setting a decline for all associations to register by June this year.
FUFA insisted until FIFA gave them the greenlight to register in a meeting with the FIFA legal team, Ministry of Education and Sports, National Council of Sports in October.
FIFA stated that FUFA could register as a trustee as long as there is no interference from government or else they risk a ban.
FUFA went ahead to make the amendments that called for change of name from FUFA limited which was done and changed to Scoreline limited and after the Fufa general assembly in Luweero, Magogo’s faction submitted all the requirements to NCS but only missed out on the certificate of Incorporation from Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development which earlier had been issued to Dan Walusimbi.
Reports indicate, the then Minister of Lands, Daudi Migereko attempted to cancel the certificate given to Walusimbi but his decision was challenged in court and the certificate was reinstated.
At the moment, there is another case before court in which challenges the certificate awarded to Walusimbi and it is upon the judgement that NCS will determine which faction will be recognised.
Surprisingly, after the media briefing, NCS went into a meeting with Fufa headed by Magogo to discuss the national team budget for the forthcoming 2017 African cup of Nations yet NCS claim they don’t recognise any of the two factions.