Local football coaches have decried the lack of funding to facilitate their training despite the stringent requirements set by the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA).
According to FUFA’s licencing regulations, a head coach of a Premier League club must have a minimum of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) coaching A diploma.
The head coach of a Big League club must have a minimum Confederation of African Football (CAF) coaching B or C diploma and hold a valid professional coaching licence issued by the federation’s licencing committee every season after registering with the Uganda Football Coaches Association.
However, a group of 27 coaches, comprising 24 Ugandans and three from South Sudan, attending a 30-day CAF-C Diploma coaching course at Town View Wakanda Hotel and Kabale Municipality Stadium, say their efforts to upgrade are affected by low funding.
Issa Ssempija, the head coach of Mary Hill High School in Mbarara and Western United Women’s Football Club, says that they find huge challenges in mobilising financial resources to pursue more coaching courses because their football clubs pay them meagre wages.
According to Ssempija, each participating coach is paying 700,000 as registration fees for the CAF-C diploma course and an additional 800,000 for their upkeep for the whole month. He wants the government, through FUFA, to at least consider paying registration fees for the coaches.
Stephen Pritchard, the head coach of the Rwenzori Province team, says that coaching football in Uganda is largely a personal initiative due to low funding. He says that this in effect affects the exposure of both coaches and players to the international level.
Frank Mutaremwa, the Chairperson of the Kabale District Football Association, who is also the Executive Director of Kigezi Football Club, says that many clubs lack money to pay coaches to attend higher courses because they feature in the lower leagues.
Frank Ankunzire, a member of the FUFA executive committee, admits that the funding gap is a general problem in sports, especially football, in Uganda. Ankunzire says that they will engage the government to see if such concerns can be considered in the future.
