Each Uganda Premier League Team has less than ten league games to play. We have perhaps never been as busy as we have been this season, in decades. This time round it is real business. Both hardworking and lazy gaffers have complained to the committee in charge of steering the league, in vain. Every team this season has managed to play at least two games every week. It is news in Uganda.
Things worsened when Uganda Cup kicked off. It was once expected the entire Express squad would be admitted to hospital due to injuries that had already been sustained by play-makers there. Abel Etrude and George Senkaaba are, until now, still down, nursing injuries. God intervened.
We congratulate the head coaches of the top six teams in Uganda Premier League. These people in fact are also among the most misunderstood. Not all of them will today appear on our list though.
Mid-table clubs like Wakiso Giants and Onduparaka Football Club are among the Clubs with players and coaches that have excited many. We shall greatly miss Kyetume, MYDA and Kitara Football Clubs if they are relegated, at the end of the season.
Kyetume team coach Jackson Mayanja is among the men to watch in the dugout. He recently protested and vowed to export his services to another country if referees in Uganda continued to misbehave. Mayanja says referees in Uganda are rare and among the most unprofessional in the world.
Fred Kajoba
Born in 1969, Kajoba has both laughed and shed tears as he consistently followed proceedings in the Footballing sector in Uganda. He was a little boy when Uganda made it to the AFCON finals in 1978. Kajoba was told by his parents and relatives that Football was the only way to the magnificent things of life he would, in future, want.
Fred Kajoba is quite not a very easy person to work with. They often got involved in uncalled for altercations with the now sacked Jonathan Mckinistry. You all remember what happened to him (Kajoba) when he became big-headed and refused to adhere to the rules put in place in The cranes camp, to combat the spread of covid among the people there. Kajoba was suspended from The cranes camp.
He is a fervent Christian. Perhaps his prayers took his former boss Mckinistry. This man must be a man full of brains. His ability to deal with people he meets for the first time dazzles many.
He is on our list of the most misunderstood head coaches in the now hugely followed Uganda Premier League.
Kitende facility has won itself a nasty name ‘Cheatende’. It is believed Mulindwa bribes referees to win him games. These widely circulated rumours should be neglected by informed people. There is what it takes at Kitende. Such a hugely facilitated team can beat any lousy Football club on earth. There is money at Kitende. Vipers SC players have got whatever it takes to win games. It is therefore unfair to call Fred Kajoba a coach who does not deserve to be among the title contenders this season. Kajoba is pained when his sweat and determination are misunderstood as being the invisible hand of referees that help him win. Vipers are an able team with an able coach, Fred Kajoba.
Douglas Bamweyana
He is less than forty five years of age. Douglas Bamweyana is so serious when looking that you may think he has not dealt with Sports men, both young and old, for almost a decade now.
He is a Sports Scientist. He has taught sports on the black board at Makerere University to more young men and women than he thought about before he qualified as a lecturer. Bamweyana has coached University students and at Villa and, Express Football Club.
It is a well-known fact by all Sports Scientists in Uganda that Douglas Bamweyana, if given time and space, can turn a Football player into something very admirable and priceless. I was not surprised when he the other day successfully delivered notes to his Wakiso Giants boys. Wakiso mauled UPDF FC 5-1. Now that some referees have understood that Bamweyana is a Sports Scientist, who understands the things that happen on the entire field of play, they might soon leave him do what he knows better. Bamweyana is a Football teacher. Referees in Uganda should know.
Bamweyana recently, like Jackson Mayanja of Kyetume Football Club, threatened to quit coaching in Uganda. All these people accuse referees of being some of the most unprofessional referees in the world.
Now that Wakiso is winning games and sitting comfortably out of the relegation zone, Bamweyana will soon get the real confidence that he had in the early 2010s when he dealt mostly with young boys and girls of Universities. He is a Sports Scientist who believes in building a Football player from nothing to something. Observe carefully and see. You will discover that Wakiso Giants play some of the most exciting Football in the now competitive Uganda Premier League. When he is understood, he will be elevated to the level of being a national Football team coach.
Morley Byekwaso
He worked under humble but controversial Mike Mutebi for years. It shocked investigators last time when it was discovered that very many ardent Football followers didn’t know that Byekwaso was Mutebi’s assistant at Lugogo for more than four years.
Morley Byekwaso was among the Football players that made us flock into Nakivubo stadium in the late 1990s. It is not true that all good former Football players will be successful Football coaches. George Ssimwogerere was captain at the National team and his team Express Football Club for years. He will grow completely old without discovering what it takes for one to coach a VEK club and things happen.
Byekwaso will be sacked or demoted before he settles, down, to do what fans and the management at KCCA Football club discover what really lured them to favour him and employ him as an interim head coach replacing hugely successful Mike Mutebi.
When asked how he led the Hippos to the finals in Mauritania in the recently concluded Under-20 AFCON, where dedicated Ghana beat his enthusiast team 2-0, Byekwaso will not tell exactly how.
Morley Byekwaso will face an uphill task that will involve pleasing KCCA FC fans, if he loses today’s game against silverware-seeking-team Vipers Sports Club at Legend Omondi Stadium at Lugogo. Byekwaso needs time that Football Clubs all over the world rarely give to coaches new in the field. We should pray for Morley Byekwaso.
Jackson Mayanja
Now this one’s case is extremely different. He rarely speaks to media and when you call him to ask him about matters concerning his coaching career and Football in Uganda, he speaks less and then informs you that he has other business to attend to.
We shall today scribble less about the ex-international, Jackson Mayanja. What I know is that Mayanja is a legend. He had a very sweet right foot. He forced very many defenders into early retirement in the nineties. Jackson Mayanja is a gaffer you cannot easily understand. We doubt if this Mayanja can help Kyetume survive relegation this season.
His next assignment is on form Express Football Club at home at Kyetume’s new home, in Nakisunga Mukono district. Personally I don’t even understand why Jackson Mayanja chose coaching over any other thing.
Like Ibrahim Buwembo, Mayanja should have concentrated on giving advice to Football coaches or focusing on spotting talent, behind the scenes. They have been poor technically and tactically wherever they have been. I have also failed to understand why Jackson Mayanja has still refused quitting coaching anywhere in the world. He is a man. Man never ate before working.
Abdallah Mubiru
Mubiru is a highly shrewd man who, in himself, believes everything is possible in Football. He played Football and did what he could. His God did the rest. It is the reason why Mubiru is now among the local-based coaches that Moses Magogo respects a lot. Magogo and his right hand men at Mengo see a lot in Journalist Abdallah Mubiru. Some people say Mubiru is favoured by Magogo because they are all Muslims. It is not true.
Moses Magogo is a man with an eagle eye. He cannot appoint one to such a level of even coaching the national Football team, because he goes to the same mosque that he goes. Mubiru is a newspaper man, like me. Search if you can, anywhere about him, you will discover that Abdallah Mubiru, even before being thought about by FUFA, knew where he was going.
He is the head coach of the now faltering Police Football Club. His bosses at Police were disappointed when Police Football Club lost to Express Football Club on Saturday (May, 08) at Wankulukuku. Soon, according to my source near his employers, he will be called, to be asked by notable figures in Police why Police FC is not performing to their expectations.
Abdallah Mubiru will make Police a big Club once again. He should be given time, and enough resources. Mubiru was appointed to replace the now sacked Jonathan Mckinistry as National team coach on interim basis.
I was not surprised by what happened. We never qualified for AFCON slated for next year in Cameroon. We never qualified. But how could that happen? There is nothing for nothing. We prepared poorly and, we paid the price, well-deserved. Abdallah Mubiru is a good coach. He is extremely underrated though. It hurts Mubiru.
Wasswa Bbosa
Express FC is currently third on the sixteen team UPL log. They are already on quarter finals in Uganda Cup. There is all hope that Express FC, if this form they are on today is not deceiving, are among the Uganda Premier League title contenders this season.
Wasswa Bbosa has humiliated almost every big team in Uganda this season. He has this season gathered four points from the clubs biggest rivals, Villa.
Wasswa Bbosa has done the same to Vipers Sports Club. Bbosa this season beat URA Football Club, home and away. KCCA has not yet beaten Express this season. Police was beaten by the oldest UPL club in Uganda, home and away.
It is seen by all pundits that Express is a serious side this season. However, Express fans have never really believed that Wasswa Bbosa is the coach they deserve. Before being signed on a permanent basis, Bbosa found Express ruined by club legend George Ssimwogerere.
The Club was on death bed. Express Football Club would be today in big league if it was not Wasswa’s ability to put his brains to work. It is still possible for Express to win both UPL and Uganda cup trophies this season. Fans have not yet believed that it can happen. It can happen!
A section of Express fans stood in the stands and insulted Bbosa when he lost to Soltilo Bright Stars 2-1, at Kavumba. Wasswa Bbosa is more capable than Kiryowa Kiwanuka, Isaac Mwesigwa and Express fans think.
Sam Simbwa
Now all tax collectors looked at the buoyant gaffer with a bad eye after Express FC eliminated him from Uganda Cup. URA is a team with money but also a team that will perhaps never think of how a fan base for loaded but insignificant Club can be built.
Sam Simbwa won Express FC their sixth title. He knows Football more than almost all the discussed coaches above. We can even ask why Simbwa is not the Uganda Cranes coach. Sam Simbwa will say he is unhappy if he is so. Sam Simbwa will quarrel with a biased referee when he really sees it that it is alright to do so. Simbwa is real. He has done it all for Football. Simbwa is a respected coach not only in Uganda but also in the entire CECAFA region.
He should be happy because he is a Express FC fans darling. A fan at Wankulukuku recently said Simbwa would give a gift to Wasswa Bbosa for humiliating for him Vipers Sports Club at their turf at Kitende.
Sam Simbwa is not as difficult as some people think. He has talked to media more than almost any other coach in SUPL. URA officials have not appreciated Simbwa really the way they should have done. It is unfortunate.
Livingstone Mbabazi
Livingstone Mbabazi is also among the underrated and misunderstood coaches in Uganda. Include him on this list. He is an ex-international whose ailing heart left him with more debts and disappointments than he needed. He is now at Mbarara City. He has already created an impact at Kakyeeka. Mbarara City sack coaches. We should pray for Livingstone Mbabazi.
