On the 25th January 2018, the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) unveiled a known sports broadcasting as the new broadcast partners for the Uganda Premier League, FUFA Big League and Uganda Cup in a 3 million US Dollar deal for four years starting 1st June 2018. Despite the positive implications this will have to Uganda Football, many expressed reservations for the legitimacy of the deal. In an exclusive interview with Kavuma Kabenge the City Lawyer presented a copy of the initial agreement dated 27th December 2014 on which sports broadcasting bought the TV Rights. Kabenge said he dismissed it at first sight because he had reservations about their capacity to pull off the job. “If you are to come in and say you want to broadcast, what we ask you is where is your resource, your demand, your experience, which platform are you going to put us at and the very question of money. Money may come even then when you talk about 3 million dollars of their deal. We are asking you where you are getting money from. Is it not from lending?” Kavuma Kabenge – Former Chairman of USL.
Kabenge added that with demands of the task ahead, there was little faith that the company will pull the task off. “I don’t believe but I hope because broadcasting is not easy when it comes to sports. And getting broadcast partners who are credible of course we had GTV before and the disappointment was poor for everyone to see and now we had AZAM, the disappointment is there for everyone to see.” The former football administrator feared that the beautiful game might soon hit a dead end. “For me, it has been always a regression and I believe we shall soon hit a rock bottom whereby we don’t have a credible product, we don’t have credible broadcast partners and if you don’t have broadcast partners you will not get the other commercial partner.”
When the new deal rolls off, Uganda Premier League Clubs are expected to receive 600,000 US dollars each with the winner taking home an improved 60 million Uganda shillings starting this 2017/2018 season.
