Uganda makes a fist of blooding young talent, but for how long?

This past week your columnist found himself binge-watching Succession. The TV show pivots on machiavellian power plays within a mega-rich family dynasty.

At the heart of the show is the family’s ailing patriarch who doesn’t intend to slow down, much to the chagrin of his grownup children of privilege.

All of this makes the noun succession, and, most importantly, what it represents a taboo subject in the Waystar Royco media empire. This is a script that Ugandan sport would rather not read from.

Well, at least for now. Much unlike the scheming and exploits of the ultra-rich Roy family, Ugandan sport has in the recent past offered little or no resistance to successional forces if you will. We have seen a rather healthy appetite for blooding young talent course through what once were bellicose veins of different sports disciplines. The net result has been a profoundly vibrant pulse.

Take netball for one. Uganda qualified and played at the 2015 Netball World Cup with players like Betty Namukasa and Florence Amono who were at the end of their tether.

Thankfully, the process of transiting from such players — who were evidently on their last legs — to fresh blood has been seamless. This owes much to a rock-solid age grade netball programme anchored on schools. Uganda piggybacked on the players it unearthed from the said programme en route to qualifying for the 2017 Netball World Youth Cup.

Fast forward to 2018 and the succession plans are still afoot. Two of the players that led the She Pearls to a credible seventh-place finish at the 2017 Netball World Youth Cup were amongst the party that secured qualification for the 2019 Netball World Cup.

And the story didn’t stop there for Joan Nampungu and Betty Kizza. The pair, together with another new-kid-on-the-block in the shape of Mary Nuba, have figured heavily for the Mighty Cranes during the Fisu World University Netball Championship here in Kampala.

Elsewhere, in cricket, gung-ho opener Zephania Arinaitwe impressed selectors after inflicting heavy blows on attacks during the national under-19 team’s home series against Nigeria and tour of Kenya.

The rich rewards for Arinaitwe came in the shape of a tour of South Africa with the senior team. The youngster didn’t disappoint, helping himself to a century in a chase during one of the matches despite having been struck down by a stomach bug. Arinaitwe’s peers once called him an alien after he effortlessly clubbed a double ton during the 2016 Schools Cricket Week. Maybe he is one after all!

But as Uganda basks in the glory of feats that run counter to what afflicts the Roy family in Succession, the mood is counterbalanced with the realisation that the trek from heir apparent to heir imminent is anything but straightforward. It is essentially what sent the Roy family’s patriarch, Logan into a tailspin. What chance that Ugandan sport will insulate itself from such a flaw? The camera is still rolling. This drama is far from running its course.

Why underwhelming buildup to UPL season is no surprise

If you have no idea that Uganda’s topflight football league kicks off next week, don’t fret.

Chances are, you are not alone. The buildup (if you can call it that!) to the 2018/19 Uganda Premier League season hasn’t been big on razzmatazz. If anything it has collapsed into a farce with the looming reality of imminent humiliation.

For those that don’t know the gory details, fixtures for a season well and truly on the horizon were yet to see the day of light by the time your columnist wrote this piece. The remarkable development has proven to be some sort of triumph of self-denial for the Uganda Premier League secretariat.

But above all, it continues to bear testament to just how the secretariat clings onto dark excesses long forgotten. Groping in the dark without the certainty a fixture list avails is a throwback to an era when matters were left to chance.

It’s no great secret that the sooner Ugandan club football pivots to best practices the better.

Yet the rat race of international football continues to flummox the powers that be. Failure to release the fixture list for the forthcoming Uganda Premier League (UPL) season strips its target audience of any iota of conversational currency. And yet conventional wisdoms suggest that to build a brand there has to be conversational currency.

What buzz though will be created when we do know who plays who and when!
With little to nibble at, it will be hardly surprising to see — as indeed will be the case — powers that be struggle unsuccessfully to jumpstart a lagging UPL campaign. So many things compete for our interests that we can’t be bothered to have our finger on the pulse of that that contrives to shoot itself in the foot.

Speaking of self harm, the handbags over the TV deal with StarTimes has added another layer of chaos to the UPL’s body of work. While cries from the clubs about getting a raw deal cannot be dismissed out of hand, the whole situation undoubtedly speaks to confusion. Loads of confusion. They may desperately want to, but UPL stakeholders are not about to overturn this one cliche: a leopard never changes its spots.

What we now know....

We now know that JKL Lady Dolphins have broken the UCU Lady Canons-KCCA Leopards duopoly. Well, at least the two outfits’ National Basketball League playoffs finals duopoly. It feels like both the Lady Canons and Leopards have been contesting for the league title for as long as the Pope was an altar boy. Not this time though.

We know that the Lady Dolphins will lock horns with the Lady Canons for top honours in a best-of-seven series many observers think could go down to the wire.

We also know that the Lady Dolphins are not responsible for the Leopards’ conspicuous absence in the finals. The Lady Canons are. This, though, doesn’t make the threat from Lady Dolphins any less potent. They have a side that has a nice blend of youth (Jamila Nansikombi) and experience (Flavia Oketcho).

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@robertmadoi