To Hell with You: Indigenous Qualified Ugandans Shun Fufa Application Call for Cranes Head Couch Saying it was Lined-up for Only Non-Nationals

The pressure is on and in high levels that at least for once, Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) should pick on, and hand the job of head coach of the national football team to a local/Ugandan coach.

Our sovereign investigations however, on the ongoing search to fill the vacant Cranes head coach Job leaves one believing that “FUFA does not have the determination to let any Ugandan take on the job,” as our underground-picked info confirms.

Besides, even as there are many CAF ‘A’ qualified and suitable Ugandans (38 Caf A holders, with 80 holding Caf B while another 250 are Caf C coaches as of April 2022), the notice literally invited only foreign coaches especially for the head coach job in spite of an ostensibly open process. FUFA posted positions of Head coach, Assistant Coach, Goalkeeping Trainer, plus a Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Uganda Cranes as being vacant and necessary to fill.

FUFA notice was that all the listed jobs are open to individuals both Ugandans and non-Ugandans. FUFA demanded that all applications should indicate coaching qualifications and working experience at the level of a national head coach elsewhere. This now was to close your Ugandan coach out of the race and those that read between the lines have not bothered to apply.

Talking about the applicants and confirming the same, “the meager numbers of Ugandans who applied for the job is a clear message that the results after a series of appraisals and interviews hands the job to a foreign coach to replace Micho,” our source further reveals. According to out investigated info, a record 310 applicants sent in their CV’s by deadline day to the local football governing body.

Out of the above figure, 245 applications were received for the head coach, 34 applicants for the assistant head coach, 24 applicants for the Strength and Conditioning coach, while 7 applied for the job of a goal-keeping coach. The shocker however across all these categories of job applicants is that only 10 (ten) Ugandans showed the interest and applied at the tail end of the application exercise that lasted seven days, with the window opening from 16th to 22nd September 2023.

Only two Ugandans applied for the head coach, two for the assistant head coach, five (5) for the strength and conditioning coach while one Ugandan showed interest in the goal-keeping trainer job with the Uganda Cranes. The Uganda Cranes head coach role fell vacant on 14^th September after the departure of Serbian tactician Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic who had messed up with the team failing in such disappointing style to two qualification consecutive attempts for AFCON (2021 and 2023/4).

Why the Rush?

It’s just a few weeks now to the 2026 World Cup qualifiers and as it stands, Uganda has no technical team to manage the squad, let alone summoning it. The federation now has less than two months to find suitable candidates before November this year when the international qualifiers commence.

Uganda is in Group G, alongside Algeria, Guinea, Mozambique, Botswana, and Somalia. The application exercise was for that reason, opened for a period of six days, starting from 16^th and ended by 17:00PM on Friday 22^nd September 2023, after which date, no applications were considered.

Applications that indicate coaching qualifications and working experience, were only sent by email and received on ([email protected]). The federation put it very clear that these are full-time jobs that would require fill time commitment, and any candidates who intend to concurrently work with other teams (clubs) were not welcome.