Africa-Press – Uganda. Speaker of Parliament Anita Among last week ordered the Minister of State for Sports, Mr Peter Ogwang, to apologise to the country, on the floor of Parliament for letting Uganda Cranes play in Egypt instead of playing at home.
Uganda Cranes, on March 25 lost to Tanzania 1-0 in their third game of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nation’s qualifiers.
Fufa chose to take Uganda Cranes 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Tanzania to Egypt after falling short of options.
Mr Ogwang duly apologised for what is now a continent-wide problem. Up to 24 African countries do not have a stadium that meets the international standards.
The federation had hoped to use the St Mary’s stadium in Kitende but the stadium failed the strict Caf test following an inspection in December last year.
Uganda’s Mandela National Stadium, Namboole is currently under renovation and the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) engineering brigade, which is conducting the works, said it would be ready in June.
Hours prior to Mr Ogwang’s presentation, he had used his official Twitter handle to make a promise that few will forget. “The game against Algeria will be played here in Namboole Stadium on June 12. That is my promise to Ugandans,” he tweeted.
Time flies and soon it will be the sixth month of the year. Even for the sceptics, you would want Namboole to reopen sooner. However, that does not even solve the problems of sports or heal the need for sports infrastructure.
Maybe those in leadership have always taken it for granted since Uganda Cranes had never been required to leave its comfort zone. For eternity, the national team played her games at Nakivubo before switching to Namboole and eventually Kitende.
Now that the rules saw Uganda ‘host’ a game in Egypt, we cannot waste a crisis this good. Everyone who cares has been part of the crusade to highlight the need for infrastructure.
The government needs to address this need. There has always been talk of improving, or even building stadiums in the regions to lessen the load on Namboole.
To avoid these becoming white elephants, we do not need stadiums the size of Namboole in the regions. Half that size will do. This will then make the stadiums sustainable for the local communities to use them beyond national team engagements.
Resting because Namboole has flung its gates wide open would be suicidal since the situation is dire. We must invest in sports facilities.
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