I hate mentioning names of players but it is baffling how Patrick Kaddu’s fortunes can turn from being the future of Ugandan football after scoring the all-important goal that sent The Cranes to Afcon 2019 to playing in the Big League side in just three years.
Tellingly, these players are returning like the proverbial prodigal son yet they would have been expected to be at their peak. Many football enthusiasts have often grappled with this enigma without a solution but in my view, I blame it on the lack of a career development framework. Around 2015, I took SC Villa to Vietnam for a series of friendlies against local sides there.
Villa had just acquired the services of several hot prospects and indeed, they played their hearts out. The team’s average age was 21. Just before our last friendly match, several clubs approached us to buy the players. Some players were even given some inducements to woo them.
On the agreed date with the football agent, he asked to take the players through early morning drills in the gym. After the session, I realised he was not forthcoming and enthusiastic as he was before.
That’s when he broke the news to me that none of the players was up to the task of playing at a higher professional football on grounds that they were over the age he wanted. It sounded like a joke until he took me through the players’ body odours, which he found to be far more mature than the striking scent of teenagers.
By this simple measure of age, my players’ dreams were in tatters. Matters were not helped when most of them failed age-related physical drills, but that wouldn’t have been an issue had the players been nurtured purposely for professional football.
The salient components of this professional nurturing involves dieting, off-field discipline, teamwork and self-drive, among others. In Uganda, a player often finds himself starting out at a club whose major goal is to win every match.
The players are expected to perform according to the team’s ambition, not their physical and mental state. There is no proper career development goal or projected improvement curve even for a year.
By the time the player emerges as a budding star, they are duped into lowering their age in order to be summoned to the national underage teams. It is here that many careers get killed because Fufa abets this process knowingly. That’s why players from schools’ competition where age-cheating is rigorously fought rarely make it to Fufa’s underage teams.
As result of the broken system, players are often caught in the mix of playing to their true potential and playing to fit into an existing Fufa framework. So, by the time they join the national team, they have already burnt out and lack proper professional football progression.
What is disappointing is that in all this, Fufa left all the grooming to clubs yet they should be the ones spearheading the process. Take the example of the great Magid Musisi! By the time he went to Europe for professional football, he was already a three-time league top-scorer with an average of 28 goals in five seasons.
Today, a one-season ‘wonder’ with just 10 goals starts thinking he is fit to join European leagues.
The author is SC Villa first vice president in charge of mobilization
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