Africa-Press – Uganda. Sports, this time, avoided the bullet as President Museveni announced a raft of measures to curb the ongoing surge in Covid-19 cases.
Unlike March 2020 when the President hit sports, along with many other activities with a blanket ban, this time he allowed sports activities to continue amid tight restrictions.
On Sunday, the highly anticipated address was received with relief across the subsector whose observance of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) put in place last year has been wanting.
“Sports events will operate under strict observance of SOPs with no spectators. All players must have a negative PCR test,” Museveni said.
The cost of testing for the virus remains high for not only the majority of sports teams, federations, and individuals but also ordinary citizens. Covid-19 tests range from Shs70,000 to Shs200,000.
Even without the ability to test routinely or do contact tracing on a mass scale, most sports disciplines resumed this year with a limited number of fans allowed – despite repeated violations.
The sports that had resumed are rugby, netball, volleyball, swimming, badminton, football, basketball, hockey, golf, motorsport, cricket, handball, athletics, pool and kabaddi.
Most of it was well until the National Council of Sports (NCS), last Thursday, unilaterally banned basketball.
In the same breath, Uganda Cricket Association suspended all their activities after the bulk of the national women’s team tested positive days before a planned trip to Rwanda.
Fufa vaccination drive
Fufa recently launched a vaccination drive for its members to help curb the spread. Also, some of federations that have been able to resume learnt a lesson from last year’s blackout, ramping up their ability to broadcast the games on television, radio and online platforms.
Fufa, the biggest federation, already has the Uganda Premier League televised. They have since added the Stanbic Uganda Cup and women’s leagues.
Rugby, basketball and cricket have televised their games online. Motorsport and their sibling, motorcross, have live streams to relay their events but not actual pictures.
Many federations have either not resumed or are unable to relay their games yet, among which are netball and athletics which are regarded as priority sports [email protected]
