Africa-Press – Uganda. Uganda’s representatives to the continent’s premium club football competitions, Vipers and Bul, had their Caf Champions League and Confederation Cup first leg engagements on Saturday. In the build up to those games, some of the clubs’ officials bemoaned what they referred to as “lack of visibility” of their team preps in the media.
It is understandable seeing such feelings as the media sometimes falls short in giving due attention to deserving events. Good media coverage goes a long way in promoting events and for football clubs, it can be the difference between good and bad performance from individual players, just like it can directly translate into supporters’ interest, thus match attendance.
Unfortunately, the media does not work from space. Football clubs have their part to play if they are to earn that airtime or column inches – they cannot expect it as a reward for simply having a big event. Having important engagements alone does not translate into back page coverage in the dailies of pre-event activities.
This buck, a salient aspect that most, if not all, local clubs appear light years from ever appreciating, falls with the teams and how they are run.
Football clubs are businesses. It is difficult to find a business in the modern era without a public relations department outside Ugandan football club setting. The local football governing body, Fufa, has over the last years been stressing professionalism of local clubs yet you still find topflight clubs in the country with head coaches who can choose to go for an entire season without speaking to the media.
Being a professional club is not about having regular new kits and a team coach for travels. Imagine in an era when many club owners are craning their necks to gain from sale of their talented players to foreign clubs but the same local clubs cannot even prepare these players for that professional duty. There is every chance that a player who cannot address the local media will freak out on their first day out in a foreign land.
Professionalism must entail public relations functions where the persons in charge should be in position to impart the skills to deal with the public and the media in their engagements. Imagine a Uganda Premier League club official referring journalists to a past media interview clip for comments, is this the same thing these club officials would do when they travel for continental duties and are faced with foreign media? Yet this is exactly what happened last week.
Fufa made it mandatory for every club to have a chief executive to take care of its day to day affairs but what do the CEOs exactly do beyond carrying a club’s logo? Clubs are businesses and must operate as such, putting in place qualified staff who can run their departments to the letter. Businesses gain from staff productivity and when it comes to public affairs management, the clubs must professionalise their acts.
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